{"id":199877,"date":"2019-12-29T09:45:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T17:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=199877"},"modified":"2019-12-29T09:50:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T17:50:46","slug":"build-yourself-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/29\/build-yourself-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Build Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

We build our cars, we build our wealth, we build companies, and we build external things.<\/p>\n

Why not focus on building ourselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

You are the end product<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate goal ain’t to make a bunch of money, or even that your children have a ‘better life than you’ (a modern notion). To my understanding, the ancient greeks NEVER actually even mentioned their children, wives, partners, etc. The closest mentions are of friends — but even this is a bit sparse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The philosopher — an individual who wants to build himself and his own wisdom? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why aren’t we allowed to build ourselves?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We aren’t allowed to build ourselves because to be ‘selfish’ is akin to being ‘evil’<\/a>. Our self-building is generally seen as a means<\/em> or a road to building something else — something external to us, and something beyond ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why build yourself?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But this is my thought:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you are building external things, you have less power. You have 100% control and power and autonomy over yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I cannot disappoint myself. Why? It is all on me! All the weight is on my shoulders for myself and my own self-development (physical, bodily, mental, artistic, philosophical). Therefore no ounces of regret, mourning, pity, no excuses, no disappointments. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We build our cars, we build our wealth, we build companies, and we build external things. Why not focus on building ourselves?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/ERIC-KIM-PORTRAIT-SELFIE13-hanoi-cindy-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1696&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199877"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199904,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199877\/revisions\/199904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}