ERIC KIM ₿

Life— in order to achieve epic things, these epic things will require epic effort, which will probably be accompanied by epic pain. Consider the joy of life, but the epic pain of childbirth. Perhaps an artist who makes art works should also experience a similar pain of childbirth?

Not pain for the sake of pain. But pain is perhaps a signal, or a stimulant towards growth? Or pain as a signal that you’re pushing yourself to the limit, and perhaps BEYOND and ABOVE your limit? Is this how growth works?

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Before you die, think about this—

Not what you’ve bought or purchased in your life, but what you’re accomplished.

The trillion dollar question:

How should we live our lives? What is the best life?

Let me share some honest thoughts:

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It seems all of us want more energy to do more stuff.

But what does this really mean? What is ‘energy’ from a physiological human-metabolism perspective? What does it mean to have “more energy”, and can we augment our human energy?

And even if we have more energy — towards which ends do we desire to channel this energy into?

Let me essay some of my thoughts:

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When should we ask for feedback? When shouldn’t we ask for feedback?

Why do we ask for feedback, towards what end?

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The hunger and the overwhelming desire to see manifest in the world what you desire to see manifested in the world!

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My critique of Google: how sneaky it feels. How it desires to “nudge” you in a certain way; seeming like some friend, but actually an insanely addictive algorithm which gives you exactly what you want (like a rat and pez dispenser of cocaine). Not only that, but Google as an unaesthetic advertising platform.

Of course Google has benefitted humanity 1000x more than it has hurt it, yet my simple suggestion:

Subtract things from your life that you don’t like from technology or Google.

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Your life is short and uncertain. The question is:

What do I consider my supreme life task — a life task I consider worthy of myself?

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One of my favorite films is the movie 300, based on the graphic comic novel (300) by Frank Miller.

Reading the comic and studying the compositions, I am BLOWN AWAY! I am so inspired. Let me share some thoughts:

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Why I cannot bear to see a decline in myself:

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How I’m so creatively productive:

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A funny essay I wanted to write— detailing my philosophy behind why I eat what I eat, and towards what ends.

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“You was who you was before you got here.” – JAY Z

The basic notion is this: you don’t strive to become someone else. You strive to become purely yourself.

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An ambitious goal inspired by Horace:

Striving to make photos more enduring and lasting than bronze!

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Something I was very curious when I started photography:

Could I turn my passion of photography into a living?

Truth be told, when I was in college I didn’t think it would be possible. Thus I started this blog for fun, and to just share my thoughts. But nearly a decade+ later, I’ve made racks from photography, and I’m essentially retired at age 32. And because I’m so frugal, I will never run out of money.

I wanted to write this essay to give you some practical ideas, to empower you, and hopefully help you make some gouda from photography:

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No aim towards finality or a final destination. Instead, strive to ENJOY the process of “becoming” — becoming MORE!

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How do you self-identify yourself? If you share your photos online, you’re a photography entrepreneur.

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How do you know what you should create or make? Simple:

Create for yourself.

Meaning — think of yourself as your own ideal consumer of your own creations.

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Nowadays there is too much focus and faith on metaphysics (things beyond the physical world, notions like “good” and “evil) and almost no focus on the physical.

Why so much obsession with metaphysics? My thought: we humans all want to become superhuman, or mini-god-deities. We want to transcend the physical realm — we don’t like feeling constrained or held back by the physical!

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Something I haven’t seen philosophers (besides Nietzsche) talk about: the philosophy of physiology. Let me make an attempt to construct my personal philosophers about physiology:

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How to optimize and maximize your creative power:

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Allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is ERIC KIM and I have devoted my life to photography.

Why? Let me share:

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I am convinced: street photography is the supreme form of photography.

Also — photography as the most interesting and noble form of art-creation for us visual-artists/streettogs:

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On creative muscularity:

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What is the purpose of life? There isn’t an ‘ultimate’ purpose of life that applies to everyone. But for us brave streettogs, this is my thought:

The purpose of our lives is to devote ourselves to photography.

Our goal:

Use our entire lives, our entire power to make great photos, share great photos, innovate photography, discover new compositions, and push the genre and culture of photography forward!

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The other day I was using Adobe Lightroom, and for some reason, got kicked out. I forgot my login id/password, and thought:

Damn it, I don’t want to go through the bother of recovering my ID/password, etc.

I then thought:

Hmmm — if Adobe has these kind of annoying lock-out things, perhaps it is best to NOT use it at all, and discover some sort of alternative.

Thus, I tried using Apple Photos instead. And honestly, I think I prefer Apple Photos over Adobe Lightroom. Why? Let me explain:

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All of life and all of photography is good:

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Why do we love free? Free as in price, or free in terms of freedom? Or both?

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The beauty of life : the impermenance and ephemeral nature.

For example, realize any consumer good you buy won’t and shouldn’t be forever. I always got suckered with trying to buy the perfect device: the perfect camera, phone, laptop, tablet, etc. But it seems the more realistic goal: just buy stuff expecting you to not own it for so long. Also realize anything we buy, we will eventually get bored of it. Thus we should still aim to buy things which will be more robust to time, but nothing will be robust forever.

The new aesthetic and fashion of the future: austere luxury.

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Towards a person-first approach, or a human-centric approach.

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A new collection of some of my favorite photos:

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Thoughts on Identity

There is a lot of talk about identity and ‘identity politics’. But I wonder — why do we care so much for identity? And is identity overrated?

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Art is long, life is short (ars longa, vita brevis).

Our human biological lifespan is limited. At best we can live to be 120-140 years old. But what do we desire? Perhaps to EXCEED the tyranny and confines of our singular human lives, and aim for some sort of immortality through our art, ideas, and offspring.

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The principle of life:

I ain’t gonna stop! I’m moving too fast!

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It seems most of us are dissatisfied with where we are right now, and would prefer to be somewhere else.

For example, we often get the feeling that “the grass is greener on the other side”. But what if your grass were supreme? What if the grass is greener on YOUR side? What if the optimal strategy in life were to stay put, and to maximize your own garden — right where you are living and standing?

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When I look at my old photos, I almost feel as if I re-experience the experience again like it were my first time!

What should you dedicate and devote your life to?

A thought:

Perhaps we can devote our lives to photography — to explore the depths of photograph, aesthetics of beauty, secrets of motivation and inspiration, and the great will to live and photograph.

We shall become the new photographer-artist-philosophers of the future par excellence!

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Something I realized —

Cities which are more chaotic are more interesting and fun to photograph.

For example the joy of naming photos in Hanoi, NYC, or Tokyo. The chaos wakes us up!

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No matter how “boring” or ordinary your life, just shoot it!

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What’s the purpose of color? My thought: color as a strong visual stimulus which puts more energy, vigor, and movement to your legs and body!

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I hate notions of limits. Even with my blog, website, and server — I got a hard upper-limit of 1 million files. But what if I want to upload 10million files? Or 100 million? Or 1 billion photos?

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Each photo is another molecule of water in the stream:

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It ain’t about good or bad photos — it is about sincere or insincere photos.

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To look at old photos is almost akin to shooting them anew!

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There is the common saying in academia “publish or perish”. This is often seen in a negative light.

But what if we flipped the notion upside down, and thought that publishing IS PLEASURE?

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Why do you love photography is the question we must always ask ourselves and ask others:

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One of the most important things in photography — the art of selecting your photos.

My current fun workflow:

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New composition studies from some of my photos:

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I have been a cold shower devotee for the last 6 years or so, and it’s probably one of the best “life hacks” I know.

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Many us of us desire to retire. But once we retire — then what? My idea: use your retirement in a very active way, to actually become MORE creatively productive and prolific, and to pursue artistic and philosophical aims that don’t depend on utility or money-making!

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The most fun and enjoyable life — focusing our lives on photography and nothing besides photography?

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An idea— perhaps the best way to buy things is to buy it cold. Don’t feel the heat of passion and desire when you want to buy something. A purchase should be a cold, rational, and pragmatic decision. Perhaps this will help us be less suckered by consumerism for the sake of it.

One of the best ways to teach yourself composition:

Look through your photos and sketch/annotate them.

By doing this, you can better internalize, understand, and digest your photos. I do this with my iPad, Dropbox, and the built-in Apple Photos screenshot/markup feature:

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My personal life goal:

To become hyper-human.

What does this mean?

1. Hyper-human in terms of loftiness of mind.
2. Hyper-human in terms of insanely overflowing physical, mental, and artistic strength.
3. Extreme artistic productivity and prolific ness

How to achieve this?

1. Extreme weight lifting. Extreme meat-eating.
2. Pushing everyday to the upper-limit— living life at the edge.
3. Not being distracted by petty matters— to value and prioritize your own personal self-development and growth above everything else.
4. Treating yourself as a life experiment. Subject yourself to all the most interesting tests and feats of strength for yourself.
5. Extreme sleep and recovery: To perform at this level, prizing sleep, rest, naps, recovery, strength augmentation, massage, acupuncture to make you hyper-healthy.

Photos with joy, hope, optimism and life!

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What is the most fun and rewarding life? When you’re living life at the edge and extreme!

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Why black and white over color? Color is great, but the benefit of black and white:

It leaves more to the imagination of the viewer!

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Online shopping is great, but I’d rather encourage in person shopping. Why? The ability to touch things with your hand, and actually try and hold things in-person.

For myself, when I try things in-person, I often discover I don’t really like it. For example testing the new iPhone in store is useful, because I can see how the phones feel in my hands, instead of getting suckered by marketing and online tech specs.

Also I find I discover how much I truly like objects when I touch them in-person. Like Marie Kando says, when you touch something, does it “spark joy” or not? There’s so much intelligence in our fingers and hands. So when possible, test things in person, hold them in your hands, and you’ll discover how you really feel about something.

Do this with laptops, phones, cameras, clothes, shoes, watches, cars, etc. Maybe also with human beings!

Where Should You Stand?

“Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth.” – Archimedes

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Take photos you find have an interesting composition and then break it down — make it more abstract, inverse it, apply color, gaussian blur, trace it, and fill it in:

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What is an optimal way to live life?

Create the optimal conditions for your own personal thriving in life.

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Never stop practicing. Practice is like it were your first time. Retain your child-like “beginner’s mind”.

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It is obvious that retirement is a good thing. I retired. Why did I retire? In order to focus on artistic and philosophical production.

But what holds us back? Fear. Also, perhaps we should put a stake in the ground and state:

I have retired.

More thoughts on retirement:

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Someone who inspires me a ton is Eminem. Why? He is rich as fuck, but he still raps. Why does he still rap? He is striving towards self-mastery. My thought:

As long as Eminem keeps rapping (and never stops), he will become the GOAT (greatest of all-time).

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My thought:

I don’t have the “free will” to “will” myself to be positive and optimistic; it is simply who I am and how I feel.

But how did I become so positive and optimistic? My reflections:

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People of the future will desire what we already desire today:

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In pursuit of making great street photographs:

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As a photographer, you’re also a visual poet.

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