ERIC KIM ₿

My current goal — mastering my own metabolism.

What does this mean? For me to have hyperabundant energy and thriving power all day. These are some things I’ve learned thus far:

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I often feel nostalgia for the past. But what if this is a sign of degeneration? Or perhaps when I long for my nostalgic past, I’m bored of myself, or I don’t have much going on? Because if you’re on the “up and up”, why would you long for the past?

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The wrong bias— thinking that our soul (mental) is superior and more important than our body. My belief: the soul is the body.

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Practical composition ideas for street photography:

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We want sports cars to stir and pump up our adrenaline — but why not:

1. Powerlift
2. Socially daring interaction (talk and dare to interact with strangers).
3. Street photography (with or without permission).

All these things take more skill, your courage and bravery! Not to passively increase your adrenaline by buying new stuff at the mall, by watching sports, playing video games, or watching action movies. But for you to pump up your own adrenaline via your own efforts, courage, and bravery!

Why do we care so much for productivity?

One of the insane points of modern society:

We are so hyper-focused on productivity (for the sake of it).

But why? What are the downsides to this line of thinking, and life philosophy?

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To make better photos means to make photos with energy, movement, levity, and power.

Some simple ideas:

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With iPhone, iPhone Pro, and smartphone cameras, the future of art (and society) is photography!

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Is this what we are striving towards as artists — creative rapture? To be awed by the sublimeness of our own artistic works — which acts as our own intoxicant which brings us immense joy, and also motivates us to make more arts (which we hope will give us continued creative rapture?)

Why own different or rare stuff?

To continue asking yourself philosophical questions, have a quick chat with my new Zen of Eric Chat Bot (Facebook messenger, currently only available in the States, soon to be rolled out internationally).

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Life is boring when you’re standing still. Life is far more fun when you never stop going beyond yourself, and never stop surpassing yourself. And I learned from the students from my last Berlin workshop, the German phrase: “Jump over your own shadow!”#shadowjumpers

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What makes great design? Things which are designed which races your heart. Ferrari, Lamborghini, and other cars which are insanely dynamic and aggressive in the design, audacious, and of course — fast.

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Once you realize you got the best stuff, is it liberating or depressing?

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I tested the new iPhone Pro today (wondering if it could replace RICOH GR III as my camera), but alas– I rate the RICOH GR III still at least 10x better than the iPhone Pro for photography.

Thus my practical suggestions:

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It seems to own a smartphone is better than to not own one, but the effect on buying a new phone on your personal happiness and productivity is insanely overrated.

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I love mininalism and strive to consfnsly simplify my life more and in order to maximize my own personal creative power and strength.

But what I feel we must avoid is this: becoming minimalist for virtue signaling purposes (trying to show off that by being minimalist we are somehow morally superior).

Perhaps better to hide the fact that you’re minimalist, in order to gauge your own personal sincerity towards minimalism, and dictating for yourself (and only yourself) that mininalism is best for you.

My simple suggestion: only pursue minimalism if it fits with your personal aesthetics and ethics, and only if it genuinely empowers you to become more powerful and strong!

A zen-capitalist and minimalist consumer approach:

You can admire much consumer goods and design without actually needing to buy or own it.

For example I love Lamborghini design, but I don’t know if I actually really want to own and maintain it. I admire a lot of things, but would find that owning it would actually worsen my life.

Thus perhaps we can admire things without desiring to own it? And instead channel that energy to inspire and motivate us to make our own products? (HAPTIC INDUSTRIES).

My aspiration: to become the Lamborghini for photography. Or the Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kanye West of photography.

Lift yourself by your heels
Screeching tires, hot wheels

Stand
Stand up for what you see as true
You knew it was right, truth through the strife

Cut through the ignorance with a knife with your own sharp thoughts
Until the self doubt and self—imposed knots

Turbo thoughts, v12 higher
Keep your mind revving, max out your engine desire.

ERIC

I often feel a bit depressed when I feel like I’m not “impacting” others to a degree I find satisfying.

Then came the thought: what if instead, the best person I should strive to impact is myself?

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Why photography? Because in modern life we NEED more danger, excitement, aimless exploration, and thrilling adventure!

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The more I use RICOH GR III and look at the images (on iPad Pro), the more I’m blown away.

How can a camera be this good?

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In praise of extreme hope, joy, and optimism in photography art:

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When you got several photos of the same image, how do you know which is best?

Let’s analyze:

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Simple photo composition to add to your arsenal: the spiral.

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When I look through my photos, there are certain “activation points”which catch my eye. It seems:

1. My eyes are activated at points of converging lines
2. My eyes are activated from areas of extreme contrast and brightness
3. My eyes are activated via parts of a photo which has an unusual texture that I want to inspect closer.
4. Spots with depth of field changes and contrast.
5. Hand gestures
6. Eye contact
7. Blur and a feeling of movement in the photo

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What photos do I like? Photos which put wings to my feet and soul — which inspire me to move, walk, dance, and delight in lightness, swiftness, boldness, audacity, and brazenness!

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Of course in theory we can make good photos anywhere, but the question is this:

Is it possible for you to always remain inspired to make new photos, regardless of where you live?

I think so!

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A problem in modern society:

We valorize hard work the sake of hard work, but rarely do we think, “Why?”

If you want to discover more truth WHY you do anything in life, have a quick chat with ‘Zen of Eric‘ (my new philosophy chat-bot, which is currently only available in America).

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Pick up the pace
Do you want to stay in place? Do you wish to stay in your own grace of the past? Do you want to finish first or last?

Break the rules, and create your own class. Clash with friction, and make new fictions. First principles are the best principles, listen to your own voice within you.

Start fresh, start clean. Shine so hard with your own gleam, scheme your own schemes. Live life with high beams, hit the gas; emerald green.

ERIC

Carte blanche, always go back to ‘first principles’. Best to start totally ignorant of a certain field, and ruthlessly self-experiment with yourself. To learn via ‘bricolage‘ (bricoler in French, which means to keep fiddling, experimenting).

For example:

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Something I am always curious about when analyzing people I admire:

What is their personal motivations to do x, y, z?

And of course this ultimately comes to the question:

What motivates YOU to do anything in life?

And it is my belief that the deeper we understand our own motivations, the more zeal we can add to our passions in life, and also figuring out what we DON’T want to do or pursue in our lives (knowing what NOT to do with your life is probably 1000x more important than what you want to DO in your life).

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Along with the Gaussian Blur photography composition test, we also got the INVERT (or inversion) photography composition test in order to better see, determine, and analyze our compositions.

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Do you see tomorrow as inclining upwards or declining downwards?

Of course we want our lives to be in the incline upwards. And the thing is this:

Don’t worry too much about your growth rate. Don’t compare how quickly you’re growing compared to others. Infinite 1% daily growth will render phenomenal returns!

If you don’t see your life on the upwards incline slope, perhaps figure out what you can change in your life to keep climbing up, and to avoid decline at all costs.

What’s holding us back in photography and art? Becoming a prisoner of a style, a certain technique, approach, genre.

In photography all photos are good. Shoot anything and everything!

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A life which goes BEYOND simply trying to maximize your pleasure and minimize your pain.

Instead, a life focused on achieving epic grandeur, reckless experimentation, and great heights!

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Thoughs on free will, strength of will, and the question:

Does everyone have free will?

And can we train our free will? What are the degrees of free will that we have?

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The effort is the reward in itself.

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A thought on entrepreneurship:

Perhaps it is the natural troublemaker in us which derives joy from “disruption”–seeing how things are quite lame, and how we can disrupt it and do it even better!

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I’ve already proved minimalism, digital nomad, location independence, financial independence, retired early, found the love of my life, traveled the world, became famous, got stacks, etc.

Now what?

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How much contrast is too much contrast? My conclusion:

Stronger contrast is better.

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Our will and desire as photographers:

Capture all of embodied reality.

We desire to keep exploring, keep discovering, and we are never satisfied with the photos we make and capture.

Perhaps like Pokémon— we are not satisfied until we have “caught them all”. And even when you have caught all original 151, you want to create “expansion packs”in order to continue the game?

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Do you want to become more relatable or unrelateable? My thought: we are more drawn and fascinated by unrelateable people than by relatable people.

Thus perhaps a key to success (if you desire to become a personality) is to strive to become more unknown, more unrelateable, and more foreign/mysterious and dark.

This means:

1. Act different
2. Talk different
3. Behave different
4. Live different
5. Eat different
6. Create different
7. Become more and more different from others and the masses!

When we waste too much of our energies and power helping others, we no longer have the power, will, and energy to direct our own self-development.

Also if your ultimate goal is to help others as much as you can (altruism), perhaps the best way you can do this is by being extremely selfish in your own self-development.

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Do you desire to live forever because you’re afraid of dying, or because you love life so much?

Apotheosis
Self hypnosis

Youre dope and great
Creating without hesitation, your goal is your own personal elation

Take your station in life higher high flyer
Frequently push yourself to higher summits
Icarus is a lie. Think beyond the sun
You’ve only got one great destiny: choose one.

ERIC

My joy is precisely NOT knowing what today or the future holds.

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A thought while waking up today:

I’m so grateful I’m alive. Life is all upside, no downside.

Let me explain:

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If you’re hungry for visual inspiration, feast your eyes on your own photos!

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There are so many ugly and horrifying things about truth, the world, life and existence. Yet in spite of all this ugliness how do we have the strength and motivation to keep on living and thriving?

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It isn’t about good or bad photography: it is about genuine (or ingenuine) photography.

Genuine: you make the photos because it gives you joy and thanksgiving towards reality.

Ingenuine: you make photos to get acclaim, applause and likes from others.

One of the greatest epics in photography history: Pittsburgh by W. Eugene Smith, and one of the few masters of photography who has attained the “grand style”(Nietzsche) in photographic art.

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MUSE: the goddess of memory. Poets often call upon her when they desire inspiration.

A thought: What if memory was the spark which motivates us to make art and photos?

Simple, direct, and singular compositions. Perhaps photography needs more of this.

Some practical ideas:

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A life without obstacles, challenges, and difficulties isn’t a life worth living!

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If we think about depression as more of a physiological condition, perhaps the best way to fight and overcome depression is via stimulants which motivate us to move and dance!

Some practical ideas of things which work for myself:

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What motivates us to make new photos? My theory:

The fact that none of our photos (or the photos of others) satisfy or satiate us.

Our never ending hunger for new photos for us to consume, to fuel us!

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What kind of images are good? Images that move, dance, and motivate us to move!

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The benefit of looking at old photos:

The joy of sparking wonderful, happy, and joyful memories from the past.

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RICOH GR III as the ultimate “standalone”camera for photography:

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When you got nothing to shoot, look up and shoot the sky and clouds! -1 or -2 exposure compensation, and experiment with monochrome.

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What Are You Trying to Optimize For?

A thought:

Too much focus on hyper-optimization and maximization is anti-aesthetic.

From an aesthetic perspective, I prefer slow, strong, studied, graceful, elegant, and purposeful.

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What if the optimal or the best composition was both asymmetric AND balanced?

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A thought on photography, art, etc:

Nothing SHOULD last forever.

For example, if our photos were to last forever, what hope could there be for future generations of photographers and artists? If we were forever under the tyranny of the shadow of Henri Cartier-Bresson, what bright and new future would that have for us photographers?

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What I admire about bodybuilders:

They strive to turn their own bodies into their art-project (sculpture), instead of seeking satisfaction in purchasing art-objects.

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It seems that we desire the forbidden fruit: to feel godlike, and to perhaps become godlike.

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Originality in photography is overrated.

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After much meditation and thinking about business, startups, entrepreneurship and startups, my realization and insight is this:

As a photographer and entrepreneur, do you desire to become a specialty and boutique brand (Ricoh/Leica) or a mass-market brand (Apple)?

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