ERIC KIM ₿

Theory; when we are lacking insanely epic and grand challenges in life, we are lulled to sleep?

Kanye.

Or in other words, why would you want to look like someone else?

One of the major downsides of a lot of modern day technology is that none of it is replaceable.

For example, the upside of wearing glasses instead of doing Lasik. It is easy to replace the lenses in your glasses frame, or buy a new frame. However, it is very difficult to replace your eyeballs after you’ve gone LASIK.

Also the big downside of cameras which are not interchangeable. For example my Ricoh GR II, Ricoh GR III, and 3X which all broke. Once the sensor or the lens breaks, you’re screwed, you have to send it in.

Also the downside of MacBook laptop, as well as iPhones. Once the battery goes kaput, or the screen cracks, you’re screwed. Same with iPad, iPad Pro.

Maybe also with cars, perhaps the downside of an electric car, or a Tesla is that once the battery degenerates, very difficult to replace it. Compare this with a Toyota Prius, far easier to change and replace the components, any typical mechanic or Hybrid service place can do it. I believe only Tesla dealers can actually fix Tesla cars.

Big Sean

Fixed the white balance amazingly!

Running voluntary errands can be fun!

Panasonic Lumix, the best camera?

Let us consider, the Leica Q is essentially a re-branded Panasonic Lumix camera.

To maximize his economic utility, sacrificing his health and well-being and his muscles and his body and his bodily composition towards making more money, accruing more capital, etc. 

Or sleeping.

For example, it seems that all of my mechanics drive Priuses! 

VLOG

THE COFFEE FOR (REAL) ENTREPRENEURS:

EK COFFEE >

HYPED UP on ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE— I’m currently drinking the black bag, THE PHOTOGRAPHER, which is 50% fine robusta and 50% liberica.

Some thoughts on focus:

How to focus?

The philosophy of focus is tricky; on one hand, in modern-day times it is seen as virtuous to focus. To “not get distracted“.

I know for myself, I am easily distracted by superfluous things. Therefore it is my personal passion to not be distracted.

The first question you must ask yourself is this:

Do I want to focus?

For example, Nassim Taleb writes that contrary to popular wisdom, by him not focusing on a single given subject, he was able to advance his thinking and philosophy.

On the other hand, innovators like Steve Jobs gave advice to Sergey and Larry Page about how focus was critical.

For example, the advice that Steve Jobs gave to Larry Page and Sergey Brin was how Google should just focus on search, their most critical component, and not get distracted by other things like android, etc.

Looking at things a little bit zoomed out, I think Steve Jobs may have been correct. When we look at Android, it is a very sad and poor imitation of Apple and iOS. If Android was never invented, I don’t really think that the world would suffer.

In fact, thinking about things more critically, upon much consideration and thinking, and also personal use of android and android products, essentially it’s Google’s sneaky way of injecting more advertisements into your life. The decade+ plan of android and Google Maps is quite simple; gather more personal preferences of users and user behavior in order to deliver more “relevant“ advertisements.

---

Your life

There is certainly a difference between your life, and the life of these corporations. The reason why I think corporations are not a good example is that ultimately, the strategies don’t really pertain much to the individual. It seems more effective to focus on your own personal life and thriving, rather than just look at what companies are doing.

The philosophy of living and life

To think deeply, ultimately what you want to think and consider is that you only have one life, this one given life. So the question is in this life, what do you desire to achieve, attempt, or do? Do you care for your legacy? Do you care for the thriving of other future human beings beyond you? Do you not care? Underlying all of these considerations is a certain life philosophy. And I think that is guiding principles are critical.

In terms of my personal legacy, what I want to leave behind, how I wish to contribute to society, the general thought is I want to help assist empowering other individuals. For example, I just think of my 12-year-old, 15-year-old, 16-year-old, 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 21 year old, 26 year old self, and I think and consider; I thought given point in my life in that age, what advice and wisdom do I wish that other people shared with me?

---

No external media?

In terms of laser focus, another strategy and path is no external media, beyond yourself, the vibrations of your own mind, and other embodied reality experiences you have in person with other human beings.

For example, one of the best things that I’ve personally done is go to the hot sauna every single day, religiously. Why? I consider it like my meditation zen focus, chamber, in which I come up with lots of great creative ideas.

There are also some theories that perhaps being in a really really hot sauna, in which the heat and humidity is much higher, which forces your body to sweat, might be positively good for you in terms of your hormones. Hot heat therapy in the hot sauna at the gym, or even doing hot yoga, a form of hormesis.

---

Why movies or media?

There are always great new movies coming out, great new TV shows, series, etc. But I think out of all of this, the ultimate goal is towards human thriving, some sort of strengthening, or challenges.

A simple thought:

The time you spend watching media movies or shows, just use that time to go to the gym instead.

For example, I love superhero movies. I love the Marvel movies, the superhero movies, mostly the ones that came out before Disney bought out Marvel. I personally love the hero struggle, the hero narrative, etc. Why? I see myself in their shoes; when I watch a superhero movie, it makes me think that I’m the superhero.

What does a superhero have to deal with? In America, which has Judeo Christian, Protestant, Jesus sacrifice mentality, the general thought is that a hero sacrifices his life for the collective. That is, let us consider all of these heroic movies and films, typically the lead sacrifices his or her life in order to save humanity, people beyond them, etc.

The tricky thing is when we go further back in history, let’s say studying the Iliad, the Odyssey, etc., the narrative is a bit different. For example, let us consider Achilles in the Iliad. He is not sacrificing anything for the collective. Instead, his initial plan was just to go back to his own land, ideally take Breisis with him, stop war campaigning, and just retire and chill out. However it was the death of his best friend Patroclus which drove him to seek revenge. I wonder if John Wick is almost like the modern-day Achilles; some sort of antihero that we are actually rooting for.

---

Your goals?

Once again, the tricky thing is that for you, what are your personal goals, or life mission?

Discovering your creative mission

Another critical thing is discovering your creative mission in life. That is, assuming you were a trillionaire, what would you do with your time life and physiological energy?

My general thought is that everyone is unique, and has a diverse range of skill sets they could use to leverage and move the world.

For example, let us say that you’re into cars, photography, and innovation. I think there is an interesting way you can cross pollinate all of these interests.

Or for myself, my passion for photography and coffee. Creating the first photographers blend, the first coffee optimized to help stimulate and motivate photographers.

The traditional wisdom is everyone tells you to stay focused on a single small niche. Based on my life experiences, and thinking more long-term, I don’t think this is the way. Much more effective instead of taking insanely long term.

That is, allow yourself to indulge all of your creative interests.

Focus and diversity

A simple thought is when you are investigating and pursuing all of your diverse interests, just be insanely focused on each one at a time. No need to justify yourself. In the long run, all of these things will dovetail nicely.

---

Now what?

Focus on your health, your physicality, and don’t sacrifice your health for anything. Also focus on the health of your wife, your kids, and certainly yourself.

Assuming you want to become more productive in life, the simple path is focusing on your health. If you are insanely healthy, productivity will come naturally.

---

White space

Another thought on my mind in regards to design, as well as a mental thing; how white space is critical.

What is white space? Simply put, white space is having buffer, not overloading yourself or your schedule, even for the promise of making more money.

If you’re confronted with the question; should I take on this additional work to make extra money, or should I choose to refuse it in order to maximize my mind space and mental white space, choose your mental white space.

The philosophy of making money

Another thought I had this morning is in regards to money. How to make money, why make money, how much money should we make.

I think the upside of being self-employed, an entrepreneur, is that in some regards, you have some control over this.

Social life is the best stimulus

Another thought; a simple thought I have is that perhaps the best stimulus is other people. That means, being at the gym, being at the park, being at the mall, any opportunity to be around other human beings is good for us.

Why is the modern day man so antisocial?

My theory is that because it is almost seen as a new ethic; to intrude upon other people is considered bad.

For example, when you interact with other human beings, sooner or later you will offend somebody. And this is all part of the game.

This is my theory:

Better to risk a social interaction, be friendly and say hi, and be given the cold shoulder or a bad interaction, rather than not attempt it at all.

I think this might be the cure and panacea for modern day living.

---

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY X STOICISM

A great crossover that I personally think about the difference of stoicism, and modern day life, is that stoicism must be practiced, almost like a martial arts.

Typically speaking, our use of stoicism, ethics, modern day ethics, etc. is predicated on opportunities.

For example, other people. If you’re at home all day, don’t have to expose yourself to any real life interactions with other people, you have no need for stoicism.

Also, the Internet is fake. Nowadays with ChatGPT, it is really impossible to know whether the online commentator, troll, Twitter account, etc., is a real human being or not. Therefore my suggestion is to just disable all comments on the Internet, don’t read any comments on the Internet, And only rely on face-to-face interactions.

Going to school at UCLA, and also, getting my first job in LA, I always thought that I was in the tech industry, but actually now that I think about it, I wasn’t. Instead, I was in the media industry. What is the difference?

Media is a very generalized concept. “Media“ can apply to more generalized notions of information, blogs, blog posts, websites, videos, audio, etc. Essentially anything external which stimulates us can be seen as media.

I think maybe the interesting crossover is when tech, technology can be applied to media.

What are these big tech companies anyways?

1. Facebook: social media. This is interesting because here technology becomes a tool in regards to social things, human beings, social life etc.
2. Google: a technology which rings, and filters information.
3. Amazon: to court businesses include the generalized Amazon prime shipping service, and the second being Amazon web services. Amazon web services Powers much of other Internet companies, and Amazon is the ultimate logistics company, powered by data.
4. Apple: mostly known for making iPhones, which seems to be the best tool for human beings to do human things.

What is media?

My new goal:

Become the next Disney?

What is best for you?

Why Toyota might be the best car, car company, and also why Fujifilm, the up and comer, might be the best camera company:

Kaizen?

The general idea is that with kaizen, a steady 1% improvement, every single day, or every single generation, compounded across many years in decades or maybe even centuries, results in some thing insanely great. The reason why this is a good idea is that because, it’s sort of follows normal biological power laws.

For example, a child doesn’t grow to be 6 foot tall overnight. It takes many years, maybe 16 to 20 years of steady daily growth.

I have also applied this methodology to weightlifting, specifically insanely heavy one rep max lifting. The general just as whenever I attempt a given lift, I always try to increase the weight by at least 1%. Or generally speaking, maybe once a week, or twice a week, I tried to add 2.5 pounders to each side of the barbell. This has resulted in me atlas lifting over 970 pounds. For reference, that is 10 plates, and an additional five pounder and 2.5 pounder attached on the side via ERIC KIM CLIP.

The general idea is that greatness doesn’t happen overnight, it is a piecemeal process, which happens step-by-step. Therefore the general encouragement and idea is this; take things one step at a time, and focus on growth, expansion, and augmenting or strength as a progressive process. “Progressive overload” theory as a pretty ok theory.

Pusha T and rappers would love this car!

I want to refill my gas as infrequently as possible, maybe then what it means is that the best strategy is to have a Prius prime, minimal refilling?

The typical normal Prius is also great, you can get a shit load of miles of a single tank. The reason why it is bad why I hate refilling my gas is that I would rather do more virtuous things like take Seneca to the park, continue going on adventures, etc. Going to the gas station and refilling isn’t that inconvenient, but it often is a cramp on my daily mission or workflow.

A normal Prius already gets a tons of miles on a single tank, a Prius Prime simply gets more. So all in all I think a Prius prime is good because it makes your life a little more convenient.

Also, in theory if your daily driving or commuting around is very little, and you happen to have an electric charger port at home or at the office or somewhere, in theory you can drive for “free“. The outsides of an electric car, Tesla, and also their convenience and upside of gasoline.

All matte white everything:

Vid

How courageous are you, what are you willing to attempt?

Not for the meek:

*kers— to run.

To make a loud “rushing” noise, to startle. To jolt.

Hurskaz— fast, quick, lively.

Vlog

The religion of modern day capitalism:

Goals:

Simple challenge, can you load up the bar with 10 plates, and just see if you can stand up?

With aesthetics, and everything in life, the best way to approach things is by removing things, rather than adding things.

Tesla’s are for losers!

Real OGs Drive Priuses

HYPED UP on ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE— I’m currently drinking the black bag, THE PHOTOGRAPHER, which is 50% fine robusta and 50% liberica.

Some thoughts on focus:

How to focus?

The philosophy of focus is tricky; on one hand, in modern-day times it is seen as virtuous to focus. To “not get distracted“.

I know for myself, I am easily distracted by superfluous things. Therefore it is my personal passion to not be distracted.

The first question you must ask yourself is this:

Do I want to focus?

For example, Nassim Taleb writes that contrary to popular wisdom, by him not focusing on a single given subject, he was able to advance his thinking and philosophy.

On the other hand, innovators like Steve Jobs gave advice to Sergey and Larry Page about how focus was critical.

For example, the advice that Steve Jobs gave to Larry Page and Sergey Brin was how Google should just focus on search, their most critical component, and not get distracted by other things like android, etc.

Looking at things a little bit zoomed out, I think Steve Jobs may have been correct. When we look at Android, it is a very sad and poor imitation of Apple and iOS. If Android was never invented, I don’t really think that the world would suffer.

In fact, thinking about things more critically, upon much consideration and thinking, and also personal use of android and android products, essentially it’s Google’s sneaky way of injecting more advertisements into your life. The decade+ plan of android and Google Maps is quite simple; gather more personal preferences of users and user behavior in order to deliver more “relevant“ advertisements.

---

Your life

There is certainly a difference between your life, and the life of these corporations. The reason why I think corporations are not a good example is that ultimately, the strategies don’t really pertain much to the individual. It seems more effective to focus on your own personal life and thriving, rather than just look at what companies are doing.

The philosophy of living and life

To think deeply, ultimately what you want to think and consider is that you only have one life, this one given life. So the question is in this life, what do you desire to achieve, attempt, or do? Do you care for your legacy? Do you care for the thriving of other future human beings beyond you? Do you not care? Underlying all of these considerations is a certain life philosophy. And I think that is guiding principles are critical.

In terms of my personal legacy, what I want to leave behind, how I wish to contribute to society, the general thought is I want to help assist empowering other individuals. For example, I just think of my 12-year-old, 15-year-old, 16-year-old, 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 21 year old, 26 year old self, and I think and consider; I thought given point in my life in that age, what advice and wisdom do I wish that other people shared with me?

---

No external media?

In terms of laser focus, another strategy and path is no external media, beyond yourself, the vibrations of your own mind, and other embodied reality experiences you have in person with other human beings.

For example, one of the best things that I’ve personally done is go to the hot sauna every single day, religiously. Why? I consider it like my meditation zen focus, chamber, in which I come up with lots of great creative ideas.

There are also some theories that perhaps being in a really really hot sauna, in which the heat and humidity is much higher, which forces your body to sweat, might be positively good for you in terms of your hormones. Hot heat therapy in the hot sauna at the gym, or even doing hot yoga, a form of hormesis.

---

Why movies or media?

There are always great new movies coming out, great new TV shows, series, etc. But I think out of all of this, the ultimate goal is towards human thriving, some sort of strengthening, or challenges.

A simple thought:

The time you spend watching media movies or shows, just use that time to go to the gym instead.

For example, I love superhero movies. I love the Marvel movies, the superhero movies, mostly the ones that came out before Disney bought out Marvel. I personally love the hero struggle, the hero narrative, etc. Why? I see myself in their shoes; when I watch a superhero movie, it makes me think that I’m the superhero.

What does a superhero have to deal with? In America, which has Judeo Christian, Protestant, Jesus sacrifice mentality, the general thought is that a hero sacrifices his life for the collective. That is, let us consider all of these heroic movies and films, typically the lead sacrifices his or her life in order to save humanity, people beyond them, etc.

The tricky thing is when we go further back in history, let’s say studying the Iliad, the Odyssey, etc., the narrative is a bit different. For example, let us consider Achilles in the Iliad. He is not sacrificing anything for the collective. Instead, his initial plan was just to go back to his own land, ideally take Breisis with him, stop war campaigning, and just retire and chill out. However it was the death of his best friend Patroclus which drove him to seek revenge. I wonder if John Wick is almost like the modern-day Achilles; some sort of antihero that we are actually rooting for.

---

Your goals?

Once again, the tricky thing is that for you, what are your personal goals, or life mission?

Discovering your creative mission

Another critical thing is discovering your creative mission in life. That is, assuming you were a trillionaire, what would you do with your time life and physiological energy?

My general thought is that everyone is unique, and has a diverse range of skill sets they could use to leverage and move the world.

For example, let us say that you’re into cars, photography, and innovation. I think there is an interesting way you can cross pollinate all of these interests.

Or for myself, my passion for photography and coffee. Creating the first photographers blend, the first coffee optimized to help stimulate and motivate photographers.

The traditional wisdom is everyone tells you to stay focused on a single small niche. Based on my life experiences, and thinking more long-term, I don’t think this is the way. Much more effective instead of taking insanely long term.

That is, allow yourself to indulge all of your creative interests.

Focus and diversity

A simple thought is when you are investigating and pursuing all of your diverse interests, just be insanely focused on each one at a time. No need to justify yourself. In the long run, all of these things will dovetail nicely.

---

Now what?

Focus on your health, your physicality, and don’t sacrifice your health for anything. Also focus on the health of your wife, your kids, and certainly yourself.

Assuming you want to become more productive in life, the simple path is focusing on your health. If you are insanely healthy, productivity will come naturally.

---

White space

Another thought on my mind in regards to design, as well as a mental thing; how white space is critical.

What is white space? Simply put, white space is having buffer, not overloading yourself or your schedule, even for the promise of making more money.

If you’re confronted with the question; should I take on this additional work to make extra money, or should I choose to refuse it in order to maximize my mind space and mental white space, choose your mental white space.

The philosophy of making money

Another thought I had this morning is in regards to money. How to make money, why make money, how much money should we make.

I think the upside of being self-employed, an entrepreneur, is that in some regards, you have some control over this.

Social life is the best stimulus

Another thought; a simple thought I have is that perhaps the best stimulus is other people. That means, being at the gym, being at the park, being at the mall, any opportunity to be around other human beings is good for us.

Why is the modern day man so antisocial?

My theory is that because it is almost seen as a new ethic; to intrude upon other people is considered bad.

For example, when you interact with other human beings, sooner or later you will offend somebody. And this is all part of the game.

This is my theory:

Better to risk a social interaction, be friendly and say hi, and be given the cold shoulder or a bad interaction, rather than not attempt it at all.

I think this might be the cure and panacea for modern day living.

Stoicism isn’t perfect, but the general gist of it, I think it’s a good way to live life!

STOICISM 101

Become invincible:

1. Stoicism 2
2. Becoming Stoic
3. LEMONADE.
4. Why Arguments and Confrontations Are Good
5. “I’m Over It”
6. How to Deal With Miserable People
7. How to Become a Stoic
8. How to Ignore
9. Pretend like you didn’t hear them
10. Bad Stoic Strategies
11. The Stoic Way of Dealing With Unpleasant or Miserable People
12. HOW TO BECOME A STOIC
13. Stoicism Stunts Our Power?
14. Stoicism is Mental Resistance Training
15. STOIC STRATEGIES.
16. How to Become Fearless
17. Extreme Stoicism
18. Ethics are Aesthetic
19. Indifference to Pain or Suffering
20. When is Stoicism Good? When is Stoicism Bad?
21. Why Others Criticize or Insult You
22. True Difficulty
23. What if Covid Never Goes Away?
24. SUPER STOIC
25. Anti-Hedonism
26. HOW TO CONQUER FEAR
27. ANTI FEAR
28. It is the Duty of the Strong to Help the Weak
29. The Goal is to Become Stronger
30. HYPER STOICISM
31. HYPER HERO
32. TRANSFORM EVERY DOWNSIDE INTO AN UPSIDE
33. STOICISM x Child’s Mind
34. The Art of Manly Virtue
35. Resistance Makes Us Stronger!
36. DON’T LIVE IN FEAR
37. Emotions are Good
38. Conquer Your Anger
39. BLACK EAGLE
40. DIFFICULTY AWAKENS YOUR INNER-GENIUS.
41. STOICISM IS ARMOR FOR THE MIND
42. The Spartan-Stoic Lifestyle
43. How I Conquered Fear
44. HOW TO CURE FEAR.
45. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
46. The Upside of Poverty
47. How I Became Me
48. THE WILL TO POWER, OR THE WILL TO FEAR?
49. ATTACK REALITY
50. Living *THROUGH* History
51. How to Fear Less
52. Fear is the Ultimate Contagious Disease
53. STOICISM FOR DUMMIES
54. Don’t Be Scared!
55. WHAT CAN YOU CONTROL, WHAT CAN YOU NOT CONTROL?
56. HOW YOU CAN CONQUER FEAR
57. YOU’RE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.
58. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
59. WHY AREN’T THINGS WORSE?
60. My Philosophy on Masculinity
61. A Riskier Life is a Better Life #philosophy #stoicism
62. How to Creatively Flourish in Life
63. Introduction to Stoicism
64. How to Become Stronger
65. How to Conquer Depression With Photography
66. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
67. How to Respect Yourself
68. How to Believe in Yourself
69. How to Steer Fear
70. How to Conquer Pessimism
71. How to Conquer Anxiety
72. How to Overcome Your Fear of People
73. How to Be Optimistic
74. Why I Don’t Take My Anger Seriously
75. HOW TO BECOME MORE POWERFUL
76. POSITIVITY.
77. HOW TO BECOME SUPERHUMAN
78. How to Give a Fuck Less
79. ALL IN.
80. Why I Cut My Dad Out of My Life.
81. Your iPhone Only Has 5% Battery Left.
82. How not to give a FUCK about your REPUTATION
83. WHAT IS A HUMAN?
84. HAPPINESS.
85. The Regret Minimization Framework in Photography and Life
86. How to Be a HERO
87. Conquer Your Fears by Making Fear Your Slave
88. Rule Circumstances; Don’t Let Your Circumstances Rule You
89. How to Love Yourself
90. How to Turn Shit into Gold
91. Your Parents Fuck You Up
92. Immortality
93. What Kills You Makes You Stronger
94. How to Be Patient
95. How to Conquer Anger
96. How to Bounce Back in Life
97. How to Overcome Resistance
98. Nothing Unlimited is Good; Nothing Good is Unlimited
99. You Have No Limits
100. Can 1’s and 0’s Hurt You?
101. The Envious Moment is Flying Now
102. Tomorrow We’ll Sail the Wide Seas Again
103. How to Forgive Others
104. Focus on Your Actions, Not the Results
105. Everything Will Be Alright
106. How to Be a Stoic Street Photographer
107. How to Be a Spartan Photographer
108. How to Overcome Your Fears in Life
109. How to Stop Worrying in Life
110. How to Use Photography as Self-Therapy
111. How to Free Your Soul From Disturbance
112. 3 Stoic Techniques that Can Help You Gain Tranquility
113. Can People Weaker than You Hurt You?
114. Does a Doctor Get Angry at a Crazy Patient?
115. Own Nothing

The Stoic Masters

Learn from the master stoics:

• Seneca
• Marcus Aurelius
• Epictetus
• Publilius Syrus
• Heraclitus

See all philosophy >

The path:

Video

What is your insanely mega vision in life?

White as maximally shiny!