“The people highest up have the lowest self-esteem.”

Kanye West

“Checking Instagram comments to crowd-source my self-esteem.”

Kanye West

I am an unusually high amount of self-esteem. Where did I get it? How can I increase my self-esteem, and why is this essential?

You can evolve into a higher form (in your own lifetime)!

An interesting shift we are undergoing in society:

With meritocracy, American capitalist/socialist values— this notion of “democratic luxury” is being made.

Let me explain:

Don’t let fear hold you back. Aren’t you curious what your limits are?

A realization about motivation:

When we feel “motivated”, it is an after-the-fact sensation. We must first MOVE and ACT, then consequently we will feel motivated.

The worst type of scholar is to become a commentator. To comment on something takes no real “skin in the game”. Your opinion of your comment is subjective, and based on the knowledge of others, therefore you are protected from being critiqued on your own commentary.

Perhaps a more noble and bold pursuit is this:

Instead of just commenting on the knowledge of others, we should go out and create our own new rules, laws, and ideas for others.

Let me explain:

Simplifying or cutting or destroying is also a creative act.

How to design a better UI/UX for iPhone Pro:

I’m insanely happy right now. Let me share how and why:

Listen on ERIC KIM PODCAST

Thoughts on the desire for a “perfect” and “ultimate” productivity device:

My current thoughts:

For street photography the optimal cameras include RICOH GR III or iPhone Pro/11.

Let me explain:

A stronger ego is the best ego.

Currently playing with the new iPhone Pro and here are my thoughts:

A concept I’ve not heard yet— a “digital hunter gatherer”. We already have this notion of a “digital nomad”— but why not the hunter gatherer lifestyle?

An interesting life experiment today, which is the happiest day I’ve ever had:

The secret to creating great individuals, who achieve great things:

An effective lesson from my buddy Horace (Ars Poetica, On the Art of Poetry) is this:

In order to succeed, both entertain while educating the other.

A thought:

Perhaps when we are “unhappy” it isn’t a sign of our mental well-being, it is a sign of our physiological (physical) well-being.

Therefore is our goal is to become “happier”, perhaps the goal should be to maximize our physiological strength, vigor, energy, and life!

Now, how to do this? Some ideas:

1. Vigorous massage: Just go to a cheap Chinese or Thai owned massage place (I’ve been able to find some places in Southern California for $20 an hour), and ask them to massage you “very hard”. There are theories that when you get a vigorous massage, it kickstarts your body’s “mitochondrial biogenesis” process which essentially means your body starts producing more little mini energy power plants (mitochondria).
2. Force yourself to sleep before 9-10pm, and wake up naturally without an alarm clock. In periods of extreme exhaustion, I can even sleep up to 11-14 hours in a single night. If you have insomnia, do extreme weight lifting during the day (or HIIT/crossfit). And also drink coffee/caffeine in the morning. No screens after 6pm. No Netflix, movies, video games, or other things which stimulate you. Just read paper books, go on a long walk at night, and have a nice dinner with a loved one (or yourself). Also have a high fat and meat heavy meal at night in order to fall asleep better (pork belly, beef belly). If you still cannot sleep, take a small dose of melatonin (minimum effective dose).
3. Experiment with acupuncture: There isn’t a “real” science behind it, but it seems effective. My theory is that the needles are like “micro trauma” into your muscles which stimulate your body’s “hormesis” response (like cold water therapy, weight lifting, or drinking bitter coffee/tea).
4. Stand and walk all day: No sitting allowed. I’m a huge fan of standing desks. Or the ghetto “squatting desk” (put your laptop on top of a chair or couch, and simply do a full “ass to grass” squat while working on your laptop). When your legs get tired, get up and walk around, or walk around the block. The goal is to NOT sit at any moment during the day. Only way to rest your legs is to squat, lie down on your back and take a nap, or just walk around. I am quite convinced that 99% of our modern ailments (back pain, etc) are caused by sitting (how come nobody has invented a “standing car” yet? I even prefer to stand in the metro or bus, in order to exercise my legs.

A realization what we really want to achieve as photographers:

To capture raw, unfiltered, genuine, and “real” emotions from other humans (and ourselves).

For example:

1. In street photography, we want to capture “authentic” moments, emotions, etc. This is why we generally like “unposed” photos; we believe we can capture more authentic emotions this way.
2. In portrait photography we want to capture the “authentic” soul of the subject, or we desire to capture an emotion or feeling we believe to be their “real” self. Or we photograph others in order to photograph ourselves and our own vision of humanity (Richard Avedon).
3. Even when we are photographing landscapes, things, objects, shapes and forms, there is something about our perspective and soul which we desire to communicate with others. You’re never photographing a thing or place; you’re photographing your own soul, perspective, and self.

What is worse for you:

1. Eating 2,000 calories a day of Twinkies everyday for a week?
2. Eating 2,000 calories of fatty sirloin steak everyday for a week?

Obviously eating 2,000 of calories a day of Twinkies will be worse. Why? Let me explain:

Why are we so hungry to discover the ‘best’ approach?

Practical ideas:

Making more potent art, drinking more potent coffee, making yourself more potent in life?

RICOH GR III as currently the best camera on the market, and the best camera made (thus far).

Why? Let me explain:

Why I prefer more minimalist aesthetics in photography:

Extreme minimalism and extreme simplicity as the driver of innovation, growth, and strength?

Our bloodline of photographers is to constantly be making new photos — making new photos as we breathe, as our heart beats, or how our eyes see and perceive!

A Balanced Life isn’t the Best Life

Portland great for:

Perhaps what we are seeking from life is more life. To live more, to experience more, to create more, to consume more, to recycle more, to become more powerful, to synthesize more, and to become more!

A realization:

When we try to trap ourselves within a certain genre of photography, we become prisoners. Better to unchain yourself from photographic concepts, and simply allow yourself to photograph anything AND everything!

The three vices of modern media. This is why I don’t watch, follow, or read the news, social media, blogs, websites, magazines, etc.

A thought while at Powell’s bookstore:

There are SO MANY books out there. To make another book doesn’t seem to help much with the glut of information out there.

Also, most published books can probably be published as blog posts (or could be 99% shorter).

So what if instead of aspiring to make more books, we can aspire to make more blogs or blog posts?

Upwards, to the heights and beyond / Staunch in your goals, embrace ideas from the whole world. Fly higher, disdain the plane. Train yourself to thrive with challenge — this is the secret to fun. Shun the basic and easy, and craft your own virtues for yourself. You’re beyond the hand you’ve been dealt.

Appropriate reality to the max. Stay hard in your life’s task like the hammer. Stay strong and keep pounding, and stay bright like flint. Your life is one— this is your only stint.

Animate yourself, animate your soul. Never stop making and breaking, and shaking the status quo.

You know much— have much trust in yourself. You’re the wisest in the room. Artistic explosions like sonic booms!

Hustle with guile— and crank up the dial to 11. Rise beyond the leavened bread. Write your own book— you’re read.

ERIC

The soul of the photographer: the essence of the photographer. How the photographer sees the world (their perspective), their aesthetic and ethical choices, their subject matter, and their personal philosophy.

A thought:

Perhaps composition is all about ratios, proportions, relativity.

Why does it matter if they’re natural or not?

Just watched ICARUS documentary (loved it), and have been thinking a lot about drugs, steroids, performance enhancing drugs, etc— and have been thinking about notions of:

1. “Natural” vs “unnatural”
2. “Fairness” vs “unfairness”
3. Playing “clean” vs playing “dirty”
4. Effort vs Generics
5. Privilege vs Unprivileged

The question is:

Why do these matter? Should they matter?

A simple idea:

To become more focused and productive, uninstall one app from your phone everyday.

Getting my Ansel Adams on:

Practical travel tips:

1. All black merino wool clothing. If cold, wear two black merino tshirts on top of one another (thanks to my friend Takashi for the tip). Two black merino t shirts, two black exofficio boxers, two pairs of black Outlier.NYC socks, one pair of black merino leggings, one pair of black Uniqlo stretchy black jeans (EZY).
2. Don’t travel with laptop: Just bring your phone and/or iPad. I discovered I can do 90% of the things on my iPad Pro as I can do with my MacBook Pro laptop.
3. To save money on food while traveling, eat street food, go to the local market and buy a rotisserie chicken, or get the hot foods by the pound at Whole Foods ($9 a pound for food— great deal!) The organic rotisserie chicken at Whole Foods ($10) is also a great deal for meat (2 pounds). Good for my intermittent fasting and ketogenic diet.
4. Good to stay at a hotel with a gym. If not go to the local parks while traveling and do chin-ups, dips, squats, lunges, and pushups.
5. When walking and wandering, take the spirit of the flaneur. This means walk slowly, aimlessly, with no real destination in mind.

The future of street photography is extremely bright!

Consider:

More and more people are moving into cities, and more and more people are shooting with their iPhones and smartphones.

Which means street photography (will eventually) become the dominant form and genre of photography.

Everything you need to know to get started in street photography (and to eventually master it)!

Via negativa wisdom and focus (Taleb/Nietzsche):

Decide what to consciously become ignorant of in order to focus on what you deem as truly great and worthy of yourself.

A thought:

Perhaps we are thinking the whole motivated thing incorrectly.

For example, let’s say I want to photograph and make photos. Instead of needing motivation to go out and shoot, perhaps the correct answer is to first go out and shoot, then discover the motivation while shooting.

Or in exercise, you don’t need motivation to exercise. You go exercise first, and then you will feel the motivation as an accompaniment while you’re exercising.

Practical tips and ideas:

Would you rather be a tame (and obedient, domesticated) animal (sheep), or would you rather be an apex predator (lion, eagle)?

If your desire is to always be making new photos, don’t be afraid to punish, bang around, scratch, or damage your camera. Treat the dings, scratches, and war marks as a sign of pride! Beauty of use, patina, and “breaking it in”!

An idea: as you get richer, lower your standard of living?

For example: as I’ve become richer, I’m less dazzled by the hype of expensive stuff. I think I can gauge my own sincerity more truly now:

I prefer “bang for the buck” value over how fancy something is.

Theory:

To become more artistically and mentally fit, first focus on becoming physically fit.

Freedom is to have no boundaries, no limits— nothing which can constrain or hold us back.

Often when it comes to design, cars, luxury goods, watches, etc — why is it that we prefer the foreign (Italian, French, Japanese)— and not local or domestic?

Is it perhaps a dissatisfaction with our own culture and locality — or is there some human desire towards the foreign?

What makes good art? Artwork which augments your feeling of power, and uplifts and elevates your spirit!

To blog is to stream your thoughts, your soul, your ideas, and your art.

The goal isn’t to go viral, or make a perfect blog post; the goal is to never stop streaming you.

This means:

1. Don’t self censor yourself when blogging. Write about whatever is on your mind. Don’t stick to a certain subject or genre.
2. Think longevity: how can you blog for 10 years straight, everyday, several times a day without boredom or exhaustion?

This has been my personal street photography entrepreneurship philosophy which has helped me succeed:

I made some new High Contrast Lightroom CC (Creative Cloud) presets: this time high-contrast to be applied to my RICOH GR III (high contrast JPEG photos) in order to add even more contrast.

These should work quite well for JPEG monochrome images. I have yet test them on RAW images, but check them out and play with them, remix them, and give them a go:

You can see all my Lightroom Presets Here >

It seems as a society we are striving towards “regularity”, “homeostasis”, predictability, and normality.

Are these virtues that we truly desire for ourselves; or are they beneath us?

When we want ‘happiness’ — what is it exactly that we want?

My theory:

The best happiness is physiological happiness.

What is ‘physiological happiness’? Let me explain:

To be “economical” means to “wisely allocate your resources”. These resources include your time, life, energy, money, manpower, etc.

Why is having the ability to wisely allocate your resources important?

Because:

A thought:

What are our limits?

I can speak for you, but this is how I like to live my life:

For us to make leaps and bounds in our photography and philosophy, don’t waste your energies on morals and ethics.

After thinking a long time for a good definition for “virtue”, I think I got a good one:

Human greatness and magnanimity.

Generally we will call it “manliness” (but I want to take the notion further which also applies to women).

Why virtue? Let me explain:

Something which interests me:

What motivates us to photograph?

Meaning:

1. What is the initial impulse which motivates us to photograph something?
2. Are there more optimal conditions to photograph?
3. How do we determine what (or what not) to photograph?
4. How do we determine how many photos of a certain scene to photograph?
5. Why photograph?

Practical thoughts:

What I truly desire in my life:

1. Get stronger (physically): Desire to increase my “one rep max” in all my lifts.
2. Getting more muscular: Continue to build my muscle mass while keeping my body fat percentage under 10%.
3. Making great products which inspire, motivate, and empower artists, creators, and photographers (HAPTIC INDUSTRIES).
4. Never running out of motivation and inspiration to make new art.
5. Discover new levels and depths of truth (philosophical “truthiness”).
6. Living to 120-140 years old with “hyper health”.

What’s interesting about these things: they are 100% dependent on myself. Perhaps this are the best life goals to have? To battle with physics, time, and effort/willpower instead of public opinion.

As photographers, what are we truly lacking, and what do we really need and desire?

My thought:

We are lacking the strength, motivation, or the wisdom to encourage ourselves to go out and shoot new photos, with extreme joy and delight.

So this is interesting to me:

Society scorns us when we have ‘weak willpower’. When we don’t have strong enough willpower to resist temptations, eating junk food, etc.

We are taught, “If you train yourself to have enough willpower, you can do, prevent, and achieve anything!”

To re-spark your passion for art and photography, focus on your body and physiology.

There is no ultimate truth, right or wrong.

Thus your task:

Assert your own personal truth and opinions.