{"id":56515,"date":"2017-07-12T20:28:23","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T03:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=56515"},"modified":"2017-07-12T20:35:11","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T03:35:11","slug":"life-lessons-ive-learned-living-in-saigon-for-1-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/12\/life-lessons-ive-learned-living-in-saigon-for-1-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Lessons I’ve Learned Living in Saigon For 1 Month"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Saigon, 2017 #cindyproject<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life lessons from Saigon:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One. I love living in a hotel.<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The last month, Cindy and I have been living in a $20 a night hotel. I love it.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I don’t have to clean. Saved time. <\/li>\n
  2. I don’t need to cook breakfast for Cindy. We go upstairs for breakfast buffet. <\/li>\n
  3. No time wasted grocery shopping. I ask for 6 boiled eggs at breakfast, and I eat them every evening at around 8pm (yes, after eating dinner). <\/li>\n
  4. Cannot accumulate stuff: limited space is good. We don’t buy pointless shit. <\/li>\n
  5. Focus: We go back to the hotel room at the evening, and we relax by reading, Cindy makes art by scrapbooking or working. <\/li>\n
  6. Also we’re lucky, wifi in this hotel very fast. <\/li>\n
  7. Makes me more human: I always do small talk in Vietnamese with hotel staff. Front desk, breakfast staff, and general staff. Lots of fist bumps. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Honestly, $20 a night is awesome. Only $600 a month (food and wifi included). If I were a bachelor, I’d probably live in Saigon forever.<\/p>\n

    Two. Happiness is making art<\/h2>\n
    \"\"
    PICASSO SEATED WOMAN REMIX by ERIC KIM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    I define happiness as “eudaimonia”, aka “human flourishing” in Greek. I’m only happy when I’m making stuff.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    I’m flourishing creatively when writing, making videos, reciting poetry, writing poetry, writing blog posts, walking and making photos, or sketching digital illustrations.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    by ERICKIM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    I have figured out: having money won’t make you happy. Cindy and I have saved up over $150,000 USD in our savings and I still feel anxious about money.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    Also, you eventually get bored with material pleasures. Restaurants get old. Entertaining movies get boring. Shit all gets boring. Shopping gets boring.<\/p>\n

    To avoid boredom, make art. Make street photos, sketch, draw, trace<\/a>, and play like a kid.<\/p>\n

    Another lesson:<\/p>\n

    \n Nobody knows what makes them happy. The best way to be happy is to avoid boredom.<\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Three. Limited tools better for creativity and innovation<\/h2>\n

    The last month I don’t have a phone or laptop. Just iPad. And I’ve made a lot of shit. Lots of writing in IA WRITER and ULYSSES, lots of reading ebooks (Will to Power by Nietzche).<\/p>\n

    I learned: man, I can do a lot on an iPad.<\/p>\n

    I always make excuses that my equipment<\/a> is never good enough. The truth:<\/p>\n

    \n My tools don’t fail me, my lack of creativity fails me.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Solution: Apply more “creative constraints<\/a>” to my life, and making fewer excuses.<\/p>\n

    \n Make less excuses and more art.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Will keep you updated with more life lessons as they come.<\/p>\n

    BE STRONG,
    \nERIC<\/p>\n

    Share your ART\/photos in ERIC KIM FORUM ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Life lessons from Saigon:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/eric-kim-photography-saigon-0016134.jpg?fit=800%2C1208&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56515","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=56515"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56521,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56515\/revisions\/56521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}