{"id":669721,"date":"2026-06-29T23:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T03:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=669721"},"modified":"2026-06-29T23:49:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T03:49:39","slug":"stoicism-mark-iii-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/29\/stoicism-mark-iii-2\/","title":{"rendered":"STOICISM MARK III."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STOICISM-MARK-III-6.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of STOICISM MARK III 6.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-8615c252-a950-4ced-82d3-9ade78d08864\" href=\"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STOICISM-MARK-III-6.pdf\">STOICISM MARK III 6<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STOICISM-MARK-III-6.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-8615c252-a950-4ced-82d3-9ade78d08864\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That which threatens to destroy you only makes you stronger:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\ufffc Perhaps, being the Uber stoic, ultra Stoic, hyper stoic. This will be my life legacy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, it seems that everyone just wants a purpose to life. Something that will outlive them. Not taking in consideration the ones and zeros in your bank account, and also\u2026 Becoming a little bit more careless about yourself your life your life situation, whatever. In some ways, getting over yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Focus and concentration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We cannot control the external world, but in some ways, with enough training and discipline\u2026 We can control our inner world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reading the meditations by Marcus Aurelius is so honest and pure because, he was not writing for an audience. He was fleshing out his own thoughts, for himself by himself. That the act of writing itself was therapeutic. \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps this is a good insight, at this point with ChatGPT, writing doesn\u2019t really have an economic value anymore. In the past, writing 1000 words a day was seen as good, now\u2026 There is like zero utility to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even with art, philosophy and aesthetics, AI has no interesting. Unorthodox thoughts. Reading a little bit of nietzsche is a quadrillion times more interesting than anything from Grok, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first thought is memento mori\u2026 not even your own life, but the life of your spouse and your children. To live a life with radical hyper presence, seems to be an interesting Zen practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, this is where photography is very helpful: by putting away your phone and only having your camera, I believe that you could actually live more fully in the moment, to enjoy and appreciate each moment with your kids, being alive, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then, <strong>photography as a meditative practice, rather than an economic one? \ufffc<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">That which threatens to destroy you only makes you stronger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A touch of madness is also wise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assuming that life is war, then, we need to build our soul like the military. The military soul. \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That, life is not necessarily seeking ease, but productive pain, resistance, training, askesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trauma could be productive, if, you have the right physiological approach. \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is an idea of post traumatic <em>growth<\/em> , the idea that a great wound stimulates your bodies, growth and recuperative processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, an idea, <strong>a life without trauma is not a life worth living<\/strong>. That ironically, if you want to maximize your pleasure, joy and happiness in life, you also need to maximize the trauma? \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not trauma for the sake of it, but, a traumatic thing happens, and by necessity\u2026 Your body and your mind and your soul grows a thick stoic armor. This is what happened to me when I was 12 years old, and I suppose I stuck with Me until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">necessity is the stimulus and mother of all innovation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is the worst life? A life of boredom and lack of purpose. Even Nietzsche says, \ufffc if a man has his <em>why<\/em> in life, he could easily figure out the how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\ufffc Therefore, a big thing to consider is, the why of your life. Your life purpose, your life goals, etc. \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thinking beyond yourself?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The truth is, the bare bones, spartan necessities of life, super simple\u2026 Enough meat for the evening, 12 hours a night of glorious godlike, and a mind savage with purpose. Also some great coffee doesn\u2019t hurt. I recommend 100% supreme robusta, in fact I\u2019m actually starting a new coffee boutique called ZEN COFFEE , email me at eric@erickim.com if you want to register intent \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, the more you got to lose, the more fearful, you become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s interesting is whenever I think of all the great entrepreneurs history\u2026 Like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc., they have all essentially taken a vow of poverty, in which literally nothing holds them back? \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s also refreshing about living in Phnom Penh Cambodia ,,, I feel like I finally been freed from the matrix. That like, literally, all services products, and things, are within reach,,,, And if you magically want an infinite bank account, living here makes the most sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, I\u2019m trying to critically think more about America, what the upsides are. Certainly having America as an economic base, and where you make money makes sense, but in terms of living and spending the money, living in Asia makes more sense. I\u2019m also interested in perhaps visiting Shanghai or Beijing perhaps next summer, if you want to connect this way also email me Eric@erickim.com \ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Autotelic innovation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Creating things products and services which you desire to see manifested in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve had this problem where I literally cannot find the perfect fitness workout shorts, and so I designed it myself: double layered 100% godlike black linen, hand woven here in Phnom Penh Cambodia. \ufffc Clean like a Rolls-Royce, no additional pockets or unnecessary features. The PHANTOM SHORT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Essentially, the only short you will need for the rest of your life, I\u2019m currently prototyping them in men\u2019s medium, around a 31 inch or 32 inch waist, the founder price will only be 99 USD, email me your size at eric@erickim.com if you\u2019re interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\ufffc honestly at this point, there\u2019s not really a strong economic incentive for myself anymore because, living here in Cambodia is infinite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then I guess the big idea is, knowing that your beer necessities, and your business needs recovered, what you desire to initiate and create?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Takeaway point: creating for the sake of it, whether physical mental information, ideas, etc., and share them and ship them with the world!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ERIC\ufffc\ufffc<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For private one on one consulting about stoicism or philosophy, share your ideas and concerns and things you would like to focus on to eric@erickim.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That which threatens to destroy you only makes you stronger: \ufffc Perhaps, being the Uber stoic, ultra Stoic, hyper stoic. This will be my life legacy: First, it seems that everyone just wants a \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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-669721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669721","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=669721"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669724,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669721\/revisions\/669724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}