ERIC KIM

STREAM

Why I Love Coffee Shops

To Be More Creative, Spend More Time in Coffee Shops.

Besides the caffeine, it seems the biggest benefit of doing creative work at a coffee shop is that it makes you more creatively productive! While at the coffee shop, I feel more stimulated and alert, I’m motivated, and have the energy and drive to actually make things!

Why is this? Some theories:

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Not better image quality; more beautiful aesthetics!

My thought:

Image quality is overrated. We should optimize our cameras and tools to make more beautiful aesthetic images!

For example:

  1. Beautiful grit and grain in images (digital cameras that have film filter/grain presets)
  2. Ability to turn on random light effects in our cameras (like HUJI cam and Calla Cam). The joy of light leaks, and discoloration.
  3. Experiment shooting film, or jpeg on digital cameras with film effects. Or on the smartphone with Huji cam or Calla Cam.
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Follow Yourself!

Let us make this our own personal imperative in life:

To obey ourselves, our own inclinations, to follow our own instincts, and when our gut says something is bad for us — to listen to our gut!

To become more self-focused. To obey our own selfish needs and desires (not to see “selfishness” as a vice, but our ultimate creative virtue!)

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Just Shoot It: You’ll Never Know Otherwise!

“I photograph to see what the world looks like photographed.”

Garry Winogrand

Whenever you see anything, just photograph it; you can never predict 100% what the final photo will look like!

Photograph it because you’re curious what the scene will look like as a photograph.

Deep Art

The most satisfying part of existence is to be an artist … to disappear into your artwork … and to keep making art.

Artist as the apex individual in society — artist-philosopher-king, tyrant ?

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Change.

Change, bust out the range
Ride out the bills– do it for real.

You cannot change yourself without pain
No gain without insane faith in your potential
Gravity isn’t holding you down; so why stay on the ground?

Loud out your sound–sonic boom it
Take opportunities in life with no Guile
If you live to be 120 in great health, you’ll be here for a while

So stay strong, stay woke.
Keep your mind swole, and you’ll never go broke.

ERIC

Remove Your Limiter

What is a “limiter”? It is something in your mental wiring which holds back your potential.

For example:

  1. Physical-mental limiter: The mental limiter which holds you back from attempting new “PR”’s at the gym, because you’re afraid you might injure yourself by attempting a heavier weight than you’re used to.
  2. Entrepreneurship limiter: The limiter that prevents us from starting our own business, because the fear that we may fail and become bankrupt and seen as a “failure” (fear of social stigma).
  3. Remove your creative limiter: The false idea that we shouldn’t upload more than 1 photo, blog post, or video in a single day. I say fuck that — why not 10x that? Why not upload 10 photos a day? Publish 10 blog posts a day? Make 10 beats a day? Upload 10 videos to YouTube in a single day?
  4. Creative genre limiter: Don’t trap yourself just in a single art genre. Do anything and everything which interests you! Be like Kanye West — he refused to just be a producer, and strive to rap as well. Then after rapping, he strove to get into fashion, and succeeded (when everyone told him to just focus on music). Indulge in all forms of artistic creation and expression!

Morality and Ethics

There are no ultimate morals or ethics in life. You have the power to determine your own morals and ethics in your life. Of course you must accept the consequences. But this life is the only certain life — why live for another life or even an after life? 

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Street Photography is the Ultimate Video Game!

Thinking about video games —

  1. People want an “open world” concept
  2. Gamers want to have fun, explore, discover, and adventure/quest
  3. Gamers want to exercise their “hand eye coordination”skills (consider first person shooter games)

How can we integrate these video game traits to real life? Simple — by playing and shooting street photography!

Street photography as playing, while also making art work.

Life is a Game, Not a Duty

A thought while at the gym today:

You didn’t ask to be born, thus you technically “owe” anything to anybody.

So perhaps we should think BEYOND “duty” and “original sin”. We didn’t have a choice in being born, but now we have a choice how to live our lives (we have the faculty of free will, and we have the power to live our lives however we desire).

It seems the best thing I’ve come up with so far is this:

Not to treat life as a miserable self-flagellation or “self-sacrifice” type of duty. Instead, to treat life like a fun game!