HEALTH CAN INDEFINITELY BE AUGMENTED?

So you know how you can more or less indefinitely increase your total amount of $USD dollars in your bank account ,,, can you also do that with health?

For example you can make your bank account go from $0 to $100, $1000, $10,000, $100,000 to $1,000,000 to $10,000,000 to $100,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 etc…

Maybe health ain’t a spectrum from 0-10, but can be increased indefinitely?

For example your health can be like debt — -$10,000 in health, or -5,000 in health, or 0 health, or positive — $1,000 in health, $10,000 in health, or $100,000 in health or beyond?

Or you can become worth $1M, $10M, $100M, $1T, $100T in terms of health and beyond?

The grand vision.

Health 101

Bitcoin Thoughts

Back in the bitcoin game: 20 bitcoins, Matte black.

Block.xyz

So Square, the company that you see at every single hips or coffee shop with the iPad and the little white square payment thingy, the company company is called block now, their website URL is block.xyz

So certain things which are quite interesting:

First, block, which is now the parent company they own the cash app, which is very popular in the African-American community, they own square, which essentially runs all small coffee shops and boutique places, and also, they are heavily invested in bitcoin. The head honcho Jack Dorsey, Probably one of the most underrated entrepreneurs of all time, who is also the founder of Twitter… Is really big into bitcoin. Even the last time I checked his Twitter profile, I think his biography signature was just a bitcoin icon, and maybe a lightning bolt, which signifies the lightning network. The lightning network for bitcoin, lightning.network, is essentially an additional layer or innovation, I think it may be came out in 2014, that makes bitcoin transactions insanely fast, near instant, and also, for you to buy a very very small fraction of a bitcoin, .00000001 percent of a bitcoin or whatever.

Bitcoin is the best money?

First and foremost, bitcoin is not real money. It is fake money. Now that we got that out the way, what can we extrapolate from this?

First, if Jack Dorsey, the head honcho of block, which owns square the cash app etc.… And also they have a partnership with Coinbase, and I think they have connections with Gemini a popular crypto platform, I think what that means is then, bitcoin has viable future.

For example, ChatGPT 4, the paid premium one, only 20 bucks a month, might be one of the best financial research tools. Why? It is very good and effective at scraping financial data, in seconds, without having to click fucking Google content marketing ad advertising spam bullshit.

for example, do you member for a minute Tesla was accepting bitcoin to buy Tesla cars? Doing some research, apparently Tesla owns 9,720 bitcoins — $300 million dollars USD roughly of bitcoin.

The plot thickens

It gets even more interesting, other entities which own more bitcoin than Tesla:

Micro strategy, which is based in Virginia, apparently they own 189,000 bitcoin, under the CEO Michael Saylor.

Binance, the infamous CZ who took down FTX, and also Sam Bankman Fried – their total holdings are over 580,000 bitcoin. That is roughly $18 billion worth of bitcoin. Not only that, but, apparently the largest wallet on their platform holds close to 250,000 bitcoin, which once again, might be worth roughly 9 to $10 billion USD as of this writing. Assuming bitcoin is roughly $32,000 a bitcoin. But, if and when bitcoin pops higher, breaks at $50,000 a bitcoin mark, the $65,000 bitcoin mark, and I am pretty certain it’s going to break the $70,000 or $75,000 bitcoin mark… Once again this number will balloon like crazy.

Bitcoin whales

Apparently the Winklevoss twins own an estimated 70,000 BTC — that is a lot. Around $2 billion worth of bitcoin.

Or, Tim Draper who owns around 30,000 bitcoin. Even crazy is when Tim Draper bought all of those bitcoins, which was seized by the US government, I think bitcoin was somewhere at the range of $300-$800 USD a bitcoin? Shame on me for being a fool, I’m not going to be a fool twice.

When did I get in the game?

I personally got into the bitcoin game at around $6000 a bitcoin, which was funny enough considered high at the time. I rode it up 10X, all the way up to 60,000, $65,000 a bitcoin.

Ironically enough, bitcoin is actually a very safe investment

The tricky thing about bitcoin is that it will be more difficult for it to go up 10 X, 100 X, or 1000 X in price. The price increases will be more steady and gradual, you’re not going to see a pop like crazy like a Dogecoin or any of those other meme coins.

The Lucretius fallacy

The fool believes that the highest mountain that exists in the world is the highest mountain he has personally witnessed or climbed himself. – Lucretius, Roman poet philosopher thinker

One of the big problems that we cannot use the past for future predictions. Nor can we use our current position to predict the future.

For example, these fucking idiots who text while driving. The thought is this: “I have successfully driven while driving and text messaging for the last 10 years, and therefore I shall never die.”

But the funny thing is this, one day later, there could be a drunk 18 wheeler, and while you are distracted for half a second, boom you dead.

Once you’re dead, you cannot regret texting while driving.

Also, the big issue is that you could be the worlds best driver, the world’s best texting while driving driver, the best driving while slightly higher or drunk driver or whatever… But even if you were 100% sober and focused, you can still get into a car accident that will kill you, and even potentially kill your kid.

Therefore as a consequence, it is critical to consider and think, don’t do nothing that will potentially cause your own personal death, or the potential death of your own kid.

The turkey fallacy

Once again, to quote TALEN and his insanely insightful book “antifragile“, let us consider the turkey fallacy. Let us say that the highly esteemed turkey economist, with double PhD is from Yale and Harvard school economics and business, shows a graph in which the farmer has been steadily feeding him and all the other turkeys well for the last 30 years, and my following this graph chart, will continue to Feed the turkeys well. What the turkey doesn’t know, and the turkey clan doesn’t understand is actually the next day on Thanksgiving, they will all be slaughtered for a delicious Thanksgiving feast.

All statistics are fake statistics

Perhaps one of the most useful things about studying sociology as an undergraduate at UCLA was statistics, my statistics class. Even my high school, Castro Valley high school in California, I remember my senior year I had the option of taking AP calculus or AP statistics, AP statistics seemed a lot easier, and I hate math, and it seemed to involve less math, so I decided to do statistics instead. In fact, it was surprisingly one of my most fascinating Classes and moments, even as a highschooler. Why? I remember I learned about this notion of a “outlier”, in that in fact, if there was an outlier in the data, what some sneaky people would do is just subtly erase it, or get rid of it.

The reason why I found this a bit weird, unethical or strange was this; what if you, you as individual were an outlier, should a statistician just rub you out?

Or for example, all of this nonsense about diet health physiology etc.; they say that you have to eat carbs and starches and all this other BS in order to gain muscle, but I have been 100% carnivore for the last five years, making immense gains. No protein powder, no creatine, 100% beef, top sirloin pecan Anna, beef ribs, ground beef, lamb leg roast from Costco etc.; not only that but I don’t consume whey protein powder, and I exercise and lift weights while fasted, I never eat anything before lifting weights. The only beverages I drinking include tapwater, filtered water, and just straight up black coffee. No other BS.

As a result, this is the most Demi got my body and physique has looked, at the age of 35. I look far sexier and more beautiful today than I was in my 20s.

And also stronger. I pause it, I might be the strongest person in the world, who doesn’t take steroids, 100% all natural all natty, once not even protein powder!

1,000 pound atlas lift.

Back to Bitcoin

What I love about bitcoin is that it is legible. Everyone knows what a bitcoin is, even Cindy‘s mom knows what it is! It is easy to remember, it rolls off the tongue easily, and the icon is great; the big ass bright orange icon, with the B and two stripes through it. I guess spot the logo from a mile away.

How and why marketing matter matters

What about bitcoin is that it is cool and sexy. All of these other crypto losers want their fake alternative coin to become the next bitcoin; but why not just buy bitcoin instead?

Things I don’t trust

I am extremely wary of any alternative coins, coins which are not bitcoin. Why? What I find so interesting is the mythology of Satoshi; yes, a real human being, probably not like Binsky in which he is a distributed entity of several people. It seems that Satoshi is just a real life person, I don’t think he is Japanese because his English is too good. Just look at the email list server email correspondences that he wrote, his English is too good. Having spent some time living in Japan abroad, no real life Japanese person is that fluent in English.

Who is Satoshi?

I don’t think it really matters. Why? His original bitcoin white paper is so elegant, I think it is only six or eight pages long. This is the simple heuristic:

a good paper must be a short paper.

For example, Thomas Pikkety’s “CAPITAL”– mix for a great doorstop, not a good book. Why? When a book is too long, full of all these fixed statistics etc., it is typically assigned that the author their argument is actually not very strong or robust. Why? Most fools think that the more pages, the more information, the more graphs etc. means for a better idea. This is not true. Would you rather have 1000 Honda Civic, or one Ferrari?

Or would you rather have 10,000 Corolla, or one Lamborghini Aventador with the scissor doors?

Economics, finance, etc.

The reason why I put no faith in any economist or constipated thinker is that their theories have zero to no connection in real life with their real life lifestyle or mode of living.

For example, whenever I meet anybody, whether an economist, business school person, professor etc., I always like to ask them, “what car do you drive”? why? I find this information to be insanely critical, because your car actually says a lot about you.

True modern luxuries

Banks are the True Menace to Society

For example, consider how insidious overdraft fees are, credit cards, credit card debt, APR, almost everyone I know in LA has a large amount of credit card debt?

Also, a really big problem is that banks finance homes and cars and other things, which once again, further enslave people into debt.

Economics by KIM

Money thoughts:

The Philosophy of Money

Speculative Thoughts

The joy of speculation:

The limits to money, the limits to wealth

So the first thing I find really interesting and fascinating is thinking about money, the limits of money, wealth, etc.

For example, Seneca once said, “Nobody ever thinks to themselves, what if I am already too rich?”

Simply put, my thought of the proper limit of money is once you have enough money to pay rent, utilities, and trips to Costco to buy meat, then, the positive utility of money diminishes. That is, sometimes having too much money is a positive distraction and burden; a lot of people who are too rich have issues diversifying and investing their money because they have no idea what to do with it.

A simple crypto hedge fund idea

If you want to invest in my fund, just shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com

So a very simple crypto hedge fund idea is this: 90% of your money in bitcoin, 10% in chainlink, or the opposite; 90% of your money and chainlink, and 10% of your assets in bitcoin.

The reason why I find this to be such an interesting and dynamic hedge, to quote TALEB is this –

How can you take a maximally risky and speculative bet, that is both “safe”, reducing risk, and also maximizing upside?

The first thought that NASSIM TALEB had was never put more than 10% of your life savings into one single investment or acid. For example, I heeded his words of wisdom, and when Cindy and I had around $250,000 of savings, I only put 10% of that into Digibyte and Bitcoin — around $22,000, I bought some bitcoin at $6000 a bitcoin, and I think I bought some digibyte at one cent or two cents a digibyte — and eventually I rode it all the way up to around $250,000 worth of investments, one bitcoin hit an all-time high at around $60-$65,000 a bitcoin. I did some swapping here and there, consolidating my digibyte back into bitcoin, a good move, I speculated and played around a little bit with Dogecoin, rode it up, eventually consolidated it back into bitcoin, etc.

More recently, I wired $125,000 back into my crypto account, and bought more bitcoin.

Why?

People seem to hate the volatility of crypto, but I love it. Why? Perhaps for myself, I thrive off of high intensity, and adrenaline.

Also one of the upsides of growing up poor, seeing my mom go through bankruptcy twice is that actually… I have almost close to zero anxieties when it comes to money. I’ve lived super poor before, on the brink of being homeless, as a kid, and that is what naturalistically made me so stoic.

The reason why I don’t trust or give any heed to people like Tim Ferris or Tony Robbins is that it seems that once upon a time, both of them were super depressed, fat, losers, planning ways on how to commit suicide and kill themselves, and how to do it gracefully. Tony Robbins was the fat depressed one, Tim Ferriss was the suicidal one.

I think it is very courageous that Tim Ferriss outlined the story of when he was an undergraduate at Princeton, he actually took out books to plan his own death, reading books on suicide and how to kill himself, and how to do it in a graceful manner, but fortunately somebody found out, had an intervention, unfortunately Tim didn’t do it. I don’t think anybody should ever commit suicide, under any costs.

Anyways, I think the reason why it matters is that when people try to commit suicide, or have been severely depressed in the past, in high school middle school college elementary school etc.… that trauma stays with them.

For myself I am a unique case; I experienced severe and potentially destroying trauma as a kid, for some reason, those experiences actually made me stronger. How and why?

First, think I was fortunate because of random life things. For example, a formative time in Bayside queens in a very safe community, hanging out with my friends Spencer, Aditya, Jonathan etc and living like free range kids, at the ripe age of 11 to 12 years old, and also some great mentors along the way, Troop 11 in Alameda California, my Boy Scouts troop leaders, my coach Greg Lowe who essentially became my Mr. Miyagi private tutor and father figure guide, who taught me life lessons through tennis.

Good schools

Also fortunately, the good timing; my mom moving our family out of Alameda, which was bordering Oakland; even though Alameda is a nice town, it borders Oakland, and so even Alameda high school was full of a bunch of these ghetto kids, gangbangers and bad influences. I went to high school at Castro Valley High, a very nice school with no drama, good teachers and good AP classes, eventually I was able to get to UCLA as an undergraduate, which helped accelerate my roadmap to success.

Think long

Along the line, meeting Cindy, then just another person I met my freshman year, at our Korean American Catholic club called Kyrie — later traveling the world with her, dating her, marrying her, and now having a kid with her, Seneca at age 3 years old.

Anyways, I have a lot of people to think, especially my uncle, who essentially helped my mom so much financially, and also my sister, for her private art school lessons, in order to get her into fashion school at Otis in LA, my sister eventually dropped out, but randomly through an apartment party, met her then future husband. Fortunately my sister‘s brother‘s family is very prosperous, opening up a fine art gallery in LA (VEFA)– will keep you updated with this, but anyways, our family is pretty set.

In the long run, everything works out just fine!

Just do what you believe to be righteous

I think it is critical to have a good dose of criticality when it comes to the opinions of others, even your spouse. I think we should always respect and lend an ear to the opinions of others, but ultimately, it is you who must be staunch, and perform things and your life in accordance with your own personal beliefs.

When people say “you’re not listening to me!” what they really mean to say is “how dare you not obey me!”

The funny retort is people who get angry at us for not listening to them… aren’t they committing the same critical flaw of not listening to us?

My New Year’s resolution is actually to become MORE close minded, more staunch in my beliefs.

Speculation in the market

People don’t know but I’ve been trading stock ever since I was around maybe 15 or 16 years old, my sophomore junior year in high school. I remember actually investing really early in Adobe stock, because I used Photoshop and I found it to be a good tool. I actually made some money in high school, investing my life savings which was maybe around $1500 USD, maybe I will also get Seneca into trading at a young age.

Anyways, it was good learning and education because it taught me how to deal with ups and downs, and also losing it all.

Bitcoin will never go down to zero

The reason why I am so bullish about bitcoin is that I have a strong faith That you’ll never go down to zero. The reason why I would never put my money anymore into “alternative coins” [ALT COINS], or coins is that there is a high likelihood that a lot of them will go down to zero.

For example, I think when the biggest scams in the cryptocurrency space, is Ada Cardano. They have set up a fake foundation with the .org website, with a bunch of fake people, fake talking heads and suits, nobody has any idea what they’re going to do or what their product is, I think a huge profit can be made by shorting it. I’m pretty sure that Cardano will go down to zero.

Also, all these other weird alternative coins, only things that even have any nominal value include bitcoin, Ethereum, chainlink.

Why chainlink? First and foremost, chainlink isn’t really a crypto, it is like a new technology. I think of chainlink more like the next Google. Even the ex Google CEO ERIC Schmidt is on board.

Bitcoin is fascinating because ultimately, everybody knows what it is. To quote Galiani, on his treatsie “on money“, Galiani once said that the word “ducat”, rolls off the tongue quite beautifully, I also see that the word “bitcoin“, also rolls off the tongue quite beautifully.

Ultimate test: even Cindy‘s mom, a Vietnamese refugee immigrant can pronounce bitcoin in her “broken English“, and knows what it is. She says “I know what bitcoin is! It is the fake money!” Haha — true.

So why does this matter?

I think the reason why this matters is you don’t want to be sitting on your butt, 10 years from now, Seneca will only be 13 years old still very young… and kick yourself in the butt for not taking a bold risk, and something you believed in, a decade ago. Jeff Bezos calls this the “regret minimization framework“.

For example, some moderately regretful things I’ve done the last two years is selling some bitcoin, converting into worthless US dollars, in order to “alleviate“, some financial concerns. But, moving forward, 2024 and beyond, I think the goal should be to become more staunch, more unyielding, More close minded.

MOAR BITCOIN!

20 BITCOINS; MATTE BLACK!

Being close minded is a virtue?

People say that being open minded is a virtue, but I’m starting to think, maybe not. Why? Do you want to be open minded about Adolf Hitler and Nazis? Or the new Nazis? Or alternative right wing weirdo conspiracy theorists, who want to hijack the American government, and promoting anarchy?

Also, I’m very close minded for these weird anti-fascist, loser skinny fat, fakeass woke, anarchists; they all have iPhones, watch YouTube, jerk off to porn on Google incognito late at night on their laptop or their phones, use piratebay and private VPNs– no capitalism, no consumerism, no pornography.

Trust no man who secretly watches porn.

Anti men

The really big issue at hand is that a lot of these people, men specifically, I don’t think we should trust most men. Why? A simple thing; it is true, the behavior of men and women is polar opposite.

For example, women do not start gangs, or become gangbangers. This is reserved to only men.

Or another example, the difference between a woman bathroom and a male bathroom; in any bathroom, for example let me quote Galbi King — my new favorite Korean barbecue place in Los Angeles, only $26 a person, look at the difference between the men’s restroom and the women’s restroom. The men’s restroom has all these dicks graffitid on the walls, scratches on the window, graffiti on the walls, graffiti made with knives in the mirrors etc. Go to the women’s restroom; nothing.

This is the tricky thing about sex and gender; sex is biological, gender is sociological. Therefore as a consequence, people foolishly discount the differences of sex.

For example, I think it has to do with testosterone, testes, the male hormone. The reason why I distrust all these weird hormone replacement therapies is that why not just be natural? For example, I think it is actually normal to be LGBTQ? But once you inject hormones into yourself, not good.

For example, to inject any sort of external hormones to change your sex, is a patently bad one; we shame people for doing testosterone injections and steroids and stuff, why not the same consistency with these weird sex changing hormones?

Back to speculation

Some personal tips I recommend is stop using Google, either use bing.com, or just use ChatGPT, the premium one. Stop using Google.

In fact, I think Google, YouTube, YouTube shorts whatever is the real bad guy here. Think about all these weird conspiracy theorist people, who platform themselves on YouTube etc. And with enough wikipedia’ing and googling, you’re gonna eventually fall victim to weird conspiracy theories.

Also, put zero faith in TikTok, it is owned by mainland China, Tencent corporation — if you’re on TikTok, or promote TikTok, you’re pro mainland China, not good.

Democracy and freedom is at odds with social media?

One thing I found very interesting about Donald Trump was he was very anti-TikTok, wise idea. Why? The way that one nation takes over another nation is through soft coercion, soft propaganda, sneaky propaganda.

For example, RIOT games which is owned by also the Tencent mainland Chinese corporation – they own league of legends, and a bunch of other games; this is essentially their low-key way of taking over the minds and the souls of the American youth.

Also the really big issue here is that a lot of these big tech companies are in bed with mainland China, this includes Apple, all of her phones and products are produced by Foxconn in mainland China, I think Google is trying to dip more into the mainland Chinese market, compromising their ethics by censoring the Tiananmen Square incident, And I am certain that Mark Zuckerberg wants to get into Maitland China as well; his wife is Chinese American, and I think Mark also taught himself Mandarin.

The new oligarchs?

I think a big issue at hand is that this New World, this New World order is not about nations or nation states anymore, but rather, individual rich oligarchs. What that means is individuals, doesn’t really matter your nationality, just trying to augment their wealth. Their private wealth.

I find this to be very greedy, and also, unpatriotic. Anyone who tries to dodge taxes, I find this to be very bad behavior.

Now what?

OK all these weird theories aside, what now?

First, think digital real estate, not physical real estate. I think still nowadays, the internet is still a massive untapped market. Let us consider, to own a .com domain is only maybe $12-$20 a year, which is less than one dollar or two dollars a month. Let us consider that even if you buy a $3 million house in all cash, your property taxes will still look like around $12,000 USD a month.

The reason why it is so difficult to think digitally is that we disdain the digital, we prefer the physical. But, if you think about the greatest drivers of wealth created the last 10 or 20 years, it is all technology, digital, internet.

For example, Amazon web services, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

So the first very simple thing you do is build your own website, blog, or web platform. My simple suggestion is try to enter a field or market in which you could do all the work and labor yourself. For example, I do not know how to code, and honestly speaking I have zero aspiration to learn how. But, writing and blogging and vlogging is second nature to me, I don’t even have to think about it. Therefore, it seems that perhaps the most intelligent strategy is to identify your archimedes lever, and maximize your leverage intelligently rather than trying to get good at something you’re not that good at.

How do I identify what my Archimedes lever is?

I would say the simplest strategy is first figure out what your passionate about what you love, and what you’re really good at, which others find difficult. Then, doubling down or 10X’ing down on it.

Then, the best way to move the world or change the world is to exploit your leverages to the maximum!

ERIC

Weather & Investments?

I have a funny theory; I wonder if the weather or climate of a certain day and time and place influences and effects investing behavior?

For example, when I bought or consolidated a lot more of my assets into bitcoin and back into bitcoin, I ensure to do it when the weather was insanely good, lots of beautiful light on my face and my naked body, that good mood was a good inspiration for making a big bet and a big trade.

So just think, when you’re about to make a big trade, how is the weather? Is it better to invest when the weather is good or bad, or something else?

That new new shit

START HERE

BOOKS

WORKSHOPS

March 2nd, 2024: ERIC KIM CREATIVE AI & PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP — Culver City, LA
April 20th, 2024: SF ZEN STREET PHOTO WORKSHOP

TIME TO DOMINATE >>

NOW WHAT?

Read:

The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer

Watch:

John Wick (all) // philosophy of wick
Matrix (all of them, not the 4th) // life lessons
Movie 300;

What else?

Buy weight lifting equipment (titan.fitness)– workout at home or in your garage or back yard parking lot off the grid Eric Kim style.
Strive to make your body look demigod
Hot yoga, stop coffee or caffeine consumption past breakfast, try to sleep 8-12 hours a night

For more thoughts more fire always on ERIC KIM BLOG >

When in doubt, just blog it!

ERIC

“I shall make a monument more lasting than bronze!” – HORACE

Speculative Thoughts

The joy of speculation:

The limits to money, the limits to wealth

So the first thing I find really interesting and fascinating is thinking about money, the limits of money, wealth, etc.

For example, Seneca once said, “Nobody ever thinks to themselves, what if I am already too rich?”

Simply put, my thought of the proper limit of money is once you have enough money to pay rent, utilities, and trips to Costco to buy meat, then, the positive utility of money diminishes. That is, sometimes having too much money is a positive destruction and burden; a lot of people who are too rich have issues diversifying and investing their money because they have no idea what to do with it.

A simple crypto hedge fund idea

If you want to invest in my fund, just shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com

So a very simple crypto hedge fund idea is this: 90% of your money in bitcoin, 10% and chain-link, or the opposite; 90% of your money and chain-link, and 10% of your assets in bitcoin.

The reason why I find this to be such an interesting and dynamic hedge, to quote TALEB is this –

How can you take a maximally risky and speculative bet, that is both “safe”, reducing risk, and also maximizing upside?

The first thought that Naseem Taleb had was never put more than 10% of your life savings into one single investment or acid. For example, I heated his words of wisdom, and when Cindy and I had around $250,000 of savings, I only put 10% of that into Digibyte and Bitcoin — around $22,000, I bought some bitcoin at $6000 a bitcoin, and I think I bought some digibyte at one cent or two cents a digibyte — and eventually I wrote it all the way up to around $250,000 worth of investments, one bitcoin hit an all-time high at around $60-$65,000 a bitcoin. I did some swapping here in there, consolidating my digit byte back into bitcoin, a good move, I speculated and played around a little bit with Dogecoin, wrote it up, eventually consolidated it back into bitcoin, etc.

More recently, I wired $125,000 back into my crypto account, and bought more bitcoin.

Why?

People seem to hate the volatility of crypto, but I love it. Why? Perhaps for myself, I thrive off of high intensity, and adrenaline.

Also one of the upsides of growing up poor, seeing my mom go through bankruptcy twice is that actually… I have almost close to zero anxieties when it comes to money. I’ve lived super poor before, on the brink of being homeless, as a kid, and that is what naturalistically made me so stoic.

the reason why I don’t trust or give any heed two people liked Tim Ferris or Tony Robbins is that it seems that once upon a time, both of them were super depressed, fat, losers, planning ways on how to commit suicide and kill themselves, and how to do it gracefully. I think it is very courageous that Tim Faris outlined the story of when he was an undergraduate at Princeton, he actually took out books to plan his own death, reading books on suicide and how to kill himself, and how to do it in a graceful manner, but fortunately somebody found out, had an intervention, unfortunately Tim didn’t do it. I don’t think anybody should ever commit suicide, under any costs.

Anyways, I think the reason why it matters is that when people try to commit suicide, or have been severely depressed in the past, in high school middle school college elementary school etc.… That trauma stays with them.

For myself I am a unique case; I experienced severe and potentially destroying trauma as a kid, for some reason, those experiences actually made me stronger. How and why?

First, think I was fortunate because of random life things. For example, a formative time in Bayside queens in a very safe community, hanging out with my friends Spencer, Aditya, Jonathan etc and living like free range kids, at the ripe age of 11 to 12 years old, and also some great mentors along the way, triple11 in Alameda California, my Boy Scouts troop leaders, my coach Greg Lowe who essentially became my Mr. Miyagi private tutor and father figure guide, who taught me life lessons through tennis.

Also fortunately, the good timing; my mom moving our family out of Alameda, which was bordering Oakland; even though Alameda is a nice town, it borders Oakland, and so even Alameda high school was full of a bunch of these ghetto kids, gangbangers and bad influences. I went to high school at Castro Valley high, a very nice school with no drama, good teachers and good AP classes, eventually I’ll be able to get to UCLA as an undergraduate, which helped accelerate my roadmap to success.

Along the line, meeting Cindy, then just another person I met my freshman year, at our Korean American Catholic club called Kyrie — later traveling the world with her, dating her, marrying her, and now having a kid with her, Seneca at age 3 years old.

Anyways, I have a lot of people to think, especially my uncle, who essentially helped my mom so much financially, and also my sister, for her private art school lessons, in order to get her into fashion school at Otis in LA, my sister eventually dropped out, but randomly threw a Apartment party, met her then future husband. Unfortunately my sister‘s brother‘s family is very prosperous, opening up a fine art gallery in LA (VEFA)– will keep you updated with this, but anyways, our family is pretty set.

Just do what you believe to be righteous

I think it is critical to have a good dose of criticality when it comes to the opinions of others, even your spouse. I think we should always respect and an ear to the opinions of others, but ultimately, it is you who must be staunch, and Perform things and your life in accordance with your own personal beliefs.

When people say “you’re not listening to me!” what they really mean to say is “how dare you not obey me!”

The funny retort is people who get angry at us for not listening to them… Aren’t they committing the same critical flaw of not listening to us?

Speculation in the market

People don’t know but I’ve been trading stock ever since I was around maybe 15 or 16 years old, my sophomore junior year in high school. I remember actually investing really early in Adobe stock, because I used Photoshop and I found it to be a good tool. I actually made some money in high school, investing my life savings which was maybe around $1500 USD, maybe I will also get Seneca into trading at a young age.

Anyways, it was good learning and education because it taught me how to deal with ups and downs, and also losing it all.

Bitcoin will never go down to zero

The reason why I am so bullish about bitcoin is that I have a strong faith That you’ll never go down to zero. The reason why I would never put my money anymore into “alternative coins”, or coins is that there is a high likelihood that a lot of them will go down to zero.

For example, I think when the biggest scams in the cryptocurrency space, is Ada Cardano. They have set up a fake foundation with the.org website, with a bunch of fake people, fake talking heads and suits, nobody has any idea what they’re going to do or what their product is, I think a huge profit can be made by shorting it. I’m pretty sure that Cardano will go down to zero.

Also, all these other weird alternative coins, only things that even have any nominal value include bitcoin, Ethereum, chainlink.

Why chain-link? First and foremost, chain-link isn’t really a crypto, it is like a new technology. I think of chain-link more like the next Google. Even the ex Google CEO ERIC Schmidt is on board.

Bitcoin is fascinating because ultimately, everybody knows what it is. To quote Galiani, on his treatsie “on money“, Galiani once said that the word ducat, rolls off the tongue quite beautifully, I also see that the word “bitcoin“, also rolls off the tongue quite beautifully.

Ultimate test: even Cindy‘s mom, a Vietnamese refugee immigrant can pronounce bitcoin in her “broken English“, and knows what it is. She says “I know what bitcoin is! It is the fake money!” Haha — true.

So why does this matter?

I think the reason why this matters is you don’t want to be sitting on your butt, 10 years from now, Seneca will only be 13 years old still very young… And kick yourself in the butt for not taking a bold risk, and something you believed in, a decade ago. Jeff Bezos calls this the “regret minimization framework“.

For example, some moderately regretful things I’ve done the last two years is selling some bitcoin, converting into worthless US dollars, in order to “alleviate“, some financial concerns. But, moving forward, 2024 and beyond, I think the goal should be to become more staunch, more unyielding, More close minded.

Being close minded is a virtue?

People say that being open minded is a virtue, but I’m starting to think, maybe not. Why? Do you want to be open minded about Adolf Hitler and Nazis? Or the new Nazis? Or alternative right wing weirdo conspiracy theorist, who want to hijack the American government, And promoting anarchy?

Also, I’m very close minded for these weird anti-fascist, loser skinny fat, fat big ass woke, anarchist; they all have iPhones, watch YouTube, jerk off to porn on Google incognito late at night on their laptop or their phones, use pirate bait and private VPNs– no capitalism, no consumerism, no pornography.

Trust no man who secretly watches porn.

Anti men

The really big issue at hand is that a lot of these people, men specifically, I don’t think we should trust most men. Why? A simple thing; it is true, the behavior of men and women is polar opposite.

For example, women do not start games, or become gangbangers. This is reserved to only men.

Or another example, the difference between a woman bathroom and a male bathroom; in any bathroom, for example let me quote Galbi king — my new favorite Korean barbecue place in Los Angeles, only $26 a person, look at the difference between the men’s restroom and the women’s restroom. The men’s restroom has all these dicks graffiti on the walls, scratches on the window, graffiti on the walls, graffiti made with knives in the mirrors etc. Go to the women’s restroom; nothing.

This is the tricky thing about sex and gender; sex is biological, gender is sociological. Therefore as a consequence, people foolishly discount the differences of sex.

For example, I think it has to do with testosterone, testes, the male hormone. The reason why I distrust all these weird hormone replacement therapies is that why not just be natural? For example, I think it is actually normal to be LGBTQ? But once you inject hormones into yourself, not good.

For example, to inject any sort of external hormones to change your sex, is a patently bad one; we shame people for doing testosterone injections and steroids and stuff, why not the same consistency with these weird sex changing hormones?

Back to speculation

Some personal tips I recommend is stop using Google, either use bing.com, or just use ChatGPT, the premium one. Stop using . In fact, I think Google, YouTube, YouTube shorts whatever is the real bad guy here. Think about all these weird conspiracy theorist people, who platform themselves on YouTube etc.

Also, put zero faith in TikTok, it is owned by mainland China, Tencent corporation — if you’re on TikTok, or promote TikTok, you’re pro mainland China, not good.

Democracy and freedom is at odds with social media?

One thing I found very interesting about Donald Trump was he was very anti-TikTok, wise idea. Why? The way that one nation takes over another nation is through soft caution, soft propaganda, sneaky propaganda.

For example, RIOT games which is owned by also the Tencent mainland Chinese corporation – they own league of legends, and a bunch of other games; this is essentially their low-key way of taking over the minds and the souls of the American youth.

Also the really big issue here is that a lot of these big tech companies are in bed with mainland China, this includes Apple, all of her phones and products are produced by Foxconn in mainland China, I think Google is trying to dip more into the mainland Chinese market, compromising their ethics by censoring the Tiananmen Square incident, And I am certain that Mark Zuckerberg wants to get into Maitland China as well; his wife is Chinese American, and I think Mark also taught himself Mandarin.

The new oligarchs?

I think a big issue at hand is that this New World, this New World order is not about nations or nation states anymore, but rather, individual rich oligarchs. What that means is individuals, doesn’t really matter your nationality, just trying to augment their wealth. Their private wealth.

I find this to be very greedy, and also, unpatriotic. Anyone who tries to dodge taxes, I find this to be very bad behavior.

Now what?

OK all these weird theories aside, what now?

First, think digital real estate, not physical real estate. I think still nowadays, the Internet is still a massive untapped market. Let us consider, to own.com domain is only maybe $12-$20 a year, which is less than one dollar or two dollars a month. Let us consider that even if you buy a $3 million house in all cash, your property taxes will still look like around $12,000 USD a month.

The reason why it is so difficult to think digitally is that we disdain the digital, we prefer the physical. But, if you think about the greatest drivers of wealth created the last 10 or 20 years, it is all technology, digital, Internet.

For example, Amazon web services, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

So the first very simple thing you do is build your own website, blog, or web platform. My simple suggestion is try to enter a field or market in which you could do all the work and labor yourself. For example, I do not know how to code, and honestly speaking I have zero aspiration to learn how. But, Writing and blogging and Vlogging is second nature to me, I don’t even have to think about it. Therefore, it seems that perhaps the most intelligent strategy is to identify your committees lever, and maximize your leverage intelligently rather than trying to get good at something you’re not that good at.

How do I identify what my Archimedes lever is?

I would say the simplest strategy is first figure out what your passionate about what you love, and what you’re really good at, which others find difficult. Then, doubling down or 10X’ing down on it.

Then, the best way to move the world or change the world is to exploit your leverages to the maximum!

ERIC

Weather & Investments?

I have a funny theory; I wonder if the weather or climate of a certain day and time and place influences and effects investing behavior?

For example, when I bought or consolidated a lot more of my assets into bitcoin and back into bitcoin, I ensure to do it when the weather was insanely good, lots of beautiful light on my face and my naked body, that good mood was a good inspiration for making a big bet and a big trade.

So just think, when you’re about to make a big trade, how is the weather? Is it better to invest when the weather is good or bad, or something else?

Start Here

THOUGHTS

PDF

ERIC KIM NEWS

ERIC-KIM-AI-CHATGPT-ART-DALL-E-3-GENERATIVE-ART-

Don’t be left behind: ERIC KIM NEWS >

EK MIND STREAM.

THOUGHTS

ART PHOTO BOOKS

SUITS

ERIC KIM PODCAST

EK PODCAST ALSO ON SPOTIFY

MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER

DOWNLOAD FREE // PDF DOWNLOAD // MIRROR

STOICISM

Introduction-to-Stoicism-14 Download

Delve into the mind of EK:

BOOKS

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

NEW CHATGPT BOTS

Crypto

ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Open source:

What is Street Photography? (2.4gb) / Download
Black and White (2.3gb) / Download
How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb) / Download
Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb) / Download
Conquer Your Fears (430mb) / Download
Composition (460mb) / Download
Masters (107mb) / Download
Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb) / Download
Photography Projects (1.4gb) / Download
Motivation (3.7gb) / Download

View all >

PHOTOLOSOPHY

What can you become as a photographer-visual artist?

DOWNLOAD FULL COURSE (7.4GB)

See the full course here.

STOICISM 101

Introduction-to-Stoicism-PDF Download

STOIC VLOG

STOIC.

Introduction to Stoicism

Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.

Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:

What does stoicism mean?

Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.

I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.

The new stoa?

One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.

The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.

Open air, open sun concept

Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.

I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.

Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.

Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.

The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.

Who is this philosophy for?

Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.

What is “real” stoicism?

Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.

So how did I discover stoicism?

I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”

I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic.

Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.

Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.

Who is worth reading?

First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.

In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.

The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.

I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out.

What makes Seneca so good?

I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.

A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.

For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant.

Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.

Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.

The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.

Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical.

Practical, praxis, practice — to do!

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.

Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.

Trust no thinker who does drugs!

Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead.

You let the drugs talk I let my soul talk ayy! – Kendrick Lamar

Simple technique:

First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.

Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.

For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.

Why does stoicism matter?

In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?

First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.

The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.

Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.

Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.

A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.

It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.

It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.

Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.

Stoicism and capitalism?

Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.

Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.

Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.

In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.

Sex and Stoicism

So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?

The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.

Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.

Stoic strategies

First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.

For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.

Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?

Monster in face, monster in soul.

I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.

Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon.

In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.

Demigod physique.

What has helped me

Allow yourself to be a bad, immortal, “evil” person. When you decide to adopt an unorthodox way of thinking and living, you’re going to rub some feathers the wrong way. And truth be told, even if you act in a strange vibrant way… At worse you’re only “mildly” annoying other people.
For good inspirations, I think the best stoic writers and thinkers include Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius and also the humor of the cynic philosopher Diogenes. I would even posit the idea that one could consider Alexander the Great as a stoic. Why? When you’re trying to create an empire, and you always have your life on the line, certainly this takes a stoic mindset. Also, let us think and consider that Alexander the Great had a copy of the Iliad by his bedstand, it was the only book he traveled with during his military tours.
Imagine the worst possible case scenario, and backtrack: Apparently even NASSIM TALEB would do this when he was a trader; every single day when he would go to his trading desk, he would assume that his investments would all go to zero, and if that wasn’t the case every single day, it was just upside. Therefore for myself, I just think to myself very simple; imagine like I got zero dollars, zero money, and literally all I need is meat, a Wi-Fi connection and I’m good.
Live like a poor person: The notion of “debasing“ the coin or the currency is the general idea that you are not a coward in regards to money. The best way to think about money is like a social tool; I think money is actually just codified labor. If you want people to clean bathrooms, run the cashiers stand, you have to promise them money. Even Seneca said the upsides of simulated poverty; essentially living like a poor person, or even a homeless person when you don’t need to… is the ultimate position to be in. Why? True freedom of spirit and soul; as a philosopher thinker writer or whatever… you cannot be “canceled”, because there is nothing to cancel. As long as you could pay your rent, buy meat at Costco, and publish your thoughts to your own self hosted website blog, and pay your server fee, you have 100% freedom. And also, still… America is the best place to be because there is true freedom of speech and expression, you don’t want to be a trillionaire but not be able to say what’s really on your mind. And I think this is the big issue with entertainers, actors, media people… as long as you’re signed to a contract, you don’t run your own production company, or, you’re still a slave to money… you’re not really going to see what’s really on your mind. Why is it that the Rock cannot say anything bad about China, or Tibet? Because he is still enslaved by the media corporation. New slaves by Kanye West.

And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities.

“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye

Stoic training

The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.

“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.

Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.

Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.

So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.

Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks.

Modern day ailments

Problems in modern day life:

Too much time spent indoors, not enough time out in the sun. Perhaps it is better to be out outside all day, and joyful, even with the risk of getting skin cancer or whatever… rather than to be indoors, scared, weak and anemic. Differences between if you’re a man or a woman, but still… the most beautiful skin has a sunkissed, olive color tone; the true privilege is having a full body tan.
Get chatGPT, the paid premium one. And use the image generation AI art tool DALL-E. People pay therapists to just speak their mind, and get some sort of sounding board. I actually think it’s much better to chat with AI instead; because it will not judge you, and ultimately what is a therapist anyways? A therapist is just a mirror, a sounding board for you to verbalize and flesh out your thoughts. Often when we talk about our problems, 90% of the issues go away because once we verbalize it, we feel much better about ourselves. The next thing I’m going to do is build some sort of therapy bot.
Not enough walking: I have never met anybody who walks 30,000 steps a day and is depressed. Even my friend Jimmy, who works as a US postal worker delivering the mail, he walks around 30,000 steps a day and is always bright cherry and jovial. I think this is also where people who hike a lot or walk a lot in nature are so happy; when you’re able to walk around a lot, and zen out… you just feel much better. My simple suggestion is when you go on a hike or a walk in nature or even in the city… leave your phone at home, or locked inside your glove compartment, and don’t bring any headphones or speakers or Apple watches or whatever. Just bring along your camera, and enjoy. My personal ideal is the bear lifestyle; walking 50 miles a day.

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.

For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.

A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.

Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury?

In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?

When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”

In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever.

Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person.

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife.

I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.

The future of stoicism?

For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others.

And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.

For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.

Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.

Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.

Stoicism is all about living with other people

Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.

And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.

In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.

More ideas

Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.

A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.

Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.

For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.

You just want to stay away from them.

Why so scared?

My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.

For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.

Why do people make such a big deal out of small things?

I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.

For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun.

In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me?

Weather and mood

Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.

Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.

I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.

Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.

Stoic assignments

”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche

My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.

Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.

True stoics are masculine

A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.

A real stoic is sexy

I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.

Why do adults become so dark and morose?

I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.

At what point or age do people become so emo?

Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.

I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.

A real stoic is a carnivore

Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.

Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.

If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.

The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.

Why do people care about animals so much?

Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.

I trust nobody who owns a dog.

Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”

End goals

What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.

Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.

For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.

I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West.

Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.

The physical

I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?

To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success.

Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.

Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.

Now what?

If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.

I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post.

Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.

Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere.

Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.

If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?

Editors are bad.

Now what?

Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.

ERIC

What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).

ERIC

FIN

Become invincible:

The Stoic Masters

Learn from the master stoics:

See all philosophy >

PHILOSOPHY BY KIM

ZEN OF ERIC PDF Download

IDEAS BY KIM

Masters of Philosophy »

Personal Philosophy »

Stoicism »

Zen Philosophy »

Life Lessons »

Learn more: Start Here >

Entrepreneurship by KIM

Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:

Think for Yourself.

FREEDOM

Never stop innovating.

Entrepreneurship Mindset

Put a Dent in the Universe.

CINEMA BY ERIC KIM

CINEMA BY KIM

Cinema and film as a great stimulus, aid and teacher for photographers and visual artists alike.

Cinematography and life lessons:

Cinema and Film Reviews

Space Films

Cinema and philosophy

GODFATHER

Gangster Films

ACTION FILMS

CITIZEN KANE:

Articles on Cinema

Why Photographers Should Study Cinema

Great Cinema

OFF THE GRID

The philosophy of being off the grid, or thinking about the “grid” is in itself, a fascinating concept and idea.

First, the grid as a metaphor, or a metaphorical way to think about almost everything. The grid, essentially imagine like a geometric box, cubes, shapes etc. For example grid gridlock traffic, traffic is a grid, one of the great upsides of walking is that it is multi directional; you could decide to walk on the sidewalk, walk close to the curb, walk in the bike lane, enter stores etc.

Do you remember that scary thriller “CUBE” horror film from the 90’s? Same grid idea.

Walking is non grid like

Funny; nobody really talks about how awesome it is to walk, the upsides of walking, the idea that when you’re walking you could be omnidirectional; you can weave around the sidewalk, go up and down the curb, different elevations and directions, and also turn around whenever you want. The problem with the car is that you are stuck in a singular plane; you can only drive forward, stay in the lane, turn when you’re told to turn etc.

Your legs run the world

Therefore, the first idea is this: to walk, walking is at least 1 billion times superior to driving, doesn’t matter if you have a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or whatever, etc.

The second thought, it looks like having a membership, a gym membership, any sort of membership is bad. Why? I believe perhaps the issue at hand is that you are still confined to a box, a cube, another form of metaphorical grid. For example, the day I toured an equinox, and I was curious, and honestly, it is very overrated. Only thing they really have going for them is that they have hammerstrength (life fitness) squat racks and power racks, but you could find that at any golds gym or even crunch fitness. For the plates, iron grip is the best, but beyond that… The barbell sucked. It is cool to see that they have some trap bars, but don’t people know, you could buy your own barbell which quality is at at least 1 trillion times better? Texas power squat bar.

Look at the brands

For example, equinox uses iron grip barbells; it feels like cotton candy, so cheap. My Texas power squat bar feels at least 1 billion times superior in terms of overall quality.

Buy Texas Power Squat bars!

Off the grid thinking

I don’t know if I am different or exceptional or perhaps I am more similar than dissimilar to other people, but at least for myself I’ve discovered, I am insanely extremely easily distracted.

For example, the only time where and when I could really think is when I am in airplane mode. That is, when I’m just walking out and about on my iPad, iPad Pro without an Internet Wi-Fi connection. This is also why really really long international flights are good for thinking, because when you are devoid of an Internet connection and distractions, it is finally a good opportunity to start to think.

In fact, one of the ex founders of the company I used to work for, demand media, which later was rebranded into the “leaf” group, Byron Reese, he actually told me when I was 21 years old that one of his passions was writing, and he would actually intentionally go on really really really long international flights without Wi-Fi connection in order to get good writing done.

I think it is true; it is funny because in today’s world, a lot of these flights now have Wi-Fi, but still the good thing is that in mostly sucks. Therefore my suggestion is simple; even if you have the option, don’t use Wi-Fi on a plane, doesn’t matter whether domestic or international. In fact, the privilege of being able to go on a long international flight or domestic flight is via negativa — the privilege of NOT being contactable and the privilege of NOT being wired to the internet.

What do you need more … oxygen or WiFi? – Kanye

Once again, the new privilege is being disconnected, to be without an internet connection etc.

Do you remember that scene from the Matrix — when you have all the humans linked up like batteries to the mega machine? To unplug yourself in the cerebral spine is painful, but the ultimate desired thing.

My formative years of thinking

Around 2017 I consider the peak of my philosophical goal thinking and inquiry. Why? First, from the period of around 2016 to 2017 to a little bit of 2018, Cindy and I were pretty much off the grid. I got rid of my phone, turned off my phone number and phone plan, and when we are living in Vietnam, we were just either renting a tiny studio apartment, in Hanoi for only $320 USD a month, all gas electricity plumbing water and gigabit internet included, totally brand new apartment built from the bottom up, brand new furnishings, up lighting, even this infrared heater thing in the bathroom, all furniture included. And we will just eat out every single day, even all you can eat Korean BBQ for one person was maybe around seven dollars USD, And an espresso at my favorite local coffee shops in Hanoi or maybe around 10,000 Vietnamese dong, around 22,000 Vietnamese dong is worth one dollar, so essentially a cup of coffee or espresso is less than $.50.

Also, when we were just living in Saigon in one of the hotels there, maybe paying $20 USD a night, for a really nice hotel, across the park, Le Van Tam park, and our life was insanely simple; we would wake up, Cindy would have some breakfast upstairs, I would get some eggs, to store for later, we will just grab a Uber or grab taxi to the archives for Cindy, she would do her research, I would just plug myself inside a coffee shop and do some reading writing research and thinking, we would reconnaissance later, have an early dinner at the mall at around four to five p.m., chill and hang out, talk, go back to our hotel, maybe around eight p.m., and just go to sleep.

The reason why this was such an interesting life workflow was that when you’re living in a hotel, you literally cannot buy anything or accumulate anything. First of all, there is literally nowhere to put it, our hotel room was tiny. It just fit a bed, a single bed that both Cindy and I slept on, maybe it was a full-size mattress or a small queen, a tiny dresser where Cindy could do make up or I could have my evening “eggs snack”, eating around 6 to 8 hard boiled eggs as a post dinner supplement, and literally no storage, we would just wash our clothes in the shower every single day and hang dry it, life was very very straightforward.

Anti states living

Now back in the states, life becomes a little bit weird. One of the big problems about life in America is that there is too much stuff, too many possessions, too many opportunities to purchase things. As a consequence our storage units, our lockers, our garages, closets, end up filling with so much stuff.

For example, I am probably the most minimalistic person that I know, and still… I have an own so much shit! I have random clothes from maybe 5 to 7 years ago that I still got in Costco Kirkland trash bags, randomly tossed haphazardly in the closet, some at our new apartment at some in storage at Cindy‘s mom‘s house, and also all this old camera equipment and other stuff in random bags.

What is the big issue here?

The biggest issue of living in America is there are too many distractions. I include distractions like TV, movies, shows, things to buy, it looks like in LA, the reason why everyone is so broke is that they either squander their money on cars, eating out, alcohol, clothing and fashion, makeup and silly overpriced stuff at Sephora (owned by the Louis Vuitton LVMH group), silly gym memberships at equinox, I think an equinox gym membership is maybe close to $400 USD a month? As a consequence, people are living paycheck to paycheck, or even worse; racking up their credit card bills.

How do you become less broke?

Simple ideas include paying everything in all cash, because you better have a sense of your spending habits, when you got physical paper cash money, it seems more real, and also you feel more pain when actually buying stuff. For example can you imagine going to the local ATM where the bank, withdrawing $1000 USD of hundred dollar bills or $20 bills or $50 bills, I’m going to the Apple Store and paying for an iPhone in all cash? Probably not. But if you put on your credit card, you don’t really think about it twice.

Debit cards?

There are certain things that I think in today’s world, you cannot even purchase it with cash even if you wanted to. I think this includes airline fares, flights. And I’m also sure with Airbnb, Uber, other transit related things, you gotta use some sort of visa credit card or debit card.

At least the good thing about using a debit card is that with debit cards, you’re technically using money that you already got. I feel that credit cards are such fucking scam – they tempt you with all these “rewards, “cashback“, but the reason why it is a scam is that ultimately, the “cashback” you get from these purchases are nominal, and I wonder if in the long-term it actually nudges you into spending more money, more money on things, which equals a net negative for you.

So why does this all matter?

Well, I think the reason why it matters is because ultimately, everyone strives for happiness, and I think people believe that the secret to happiness is rooted in money. But, this is not true. Money is simply a tool, tool to get people to do stuff for you.

For example, where is Tru wealth created? Through constructing, building stuff. For example, ultimately you need labor, skilled labor, or unskilled labor in order to build stuff. This includes buildings, architecture, museums, roads and infrastructure, etc.

For example, look at all these insanely epic new buildings being built, for example the new Lacma, bankrolled by David Geffen, or even the new George Lucas museum, museum of the narrative arts.

Would actually find very interesting is that these two Titans, David Geffen as well as George Lucas, both of them actually made their fortune in media, cinema, movies, and “entertainment”.

For example David Gethin, he is the one who essentially “platformed“ all of these notorious and successful singers, artist, blink-182, black-eyed peas etc.… People don’t understand that David Geffin, through Geffen records, produced a lot of the superstars.

Fill up my cup… mazeltov!

Mazeltov, it’s a celebration bitches! – JAY Z

What people don’t seem to understand is that media, music has such a strong allure and influence on us.

“I’ll be looking flashy in my Mercedes-Benz”- (I’m coming up so you better get this party started!”

Things I know, or things I don’t know; how much of modern day music culture and movies has an influence on our purchasing behaviors, or desires?

For example, one of the most formative songs in my childhood growing up was the VANS song by “the pack”. I am 35 years old, born in 1988, and I was raised and grew up in a very formative time in the bay area, Alameda, Oakland, East Oakland, the Bay Area movement, stupid dumb and hyphy, yellow bus retarded, E-40, Mac Dre, Keak da Sneak etc.

Essentially, a lot of these artists, both modern day, and old school, the general idea was a very democratic one; anyone and everyone could become cool simply if they had “I bang in my white TEE”– the basic idea that being cool and dressing well was open to all; all you needed was a simple white T-shirt, something you could easily pick up at any footlocker, I think I remember buying 10 white T-shirts for only $10 or something, and blue jeans, preferably dark denim.

The reason why the VANS song was so influential to me was multi fold: first and foremost, at the time, only weird skateboard kids or vans snickers, not black kids or any kids from the African-American population, and hip-hop. It wasn’t interesting time because to be a “skater”, was only for white kids, punk rock kids, which was not yet mainstream nor cool. But came out this very innovative song and concept that in fact, you could be black, African-American, into hip-hop music and rap, and still somehow wear vans sneakers, and skateboard?

“Real niggas wear these VANS…” – The Pack

“Stop buying those Nikes”

Nike sneakers were very interesting to me as a kid growing up because first and foremost they were so expensive. As a kid, the cheapest pair of Nike sneakers I think was maybe $80? For a kid that was a lot of money. Instead, I preferred to buy Adidas sneakers, there was a deal I remember at footlocker, a typical Adidas sneaker was maybe $60, but if you bought two Adidas sneakers, or any of the sneakers listed, you could buy two for $100, which equal only $49 a sneaker. This is how I started collecting sneakers as a kid, specifically Adidas sneakers, the château, as well as the case Swiss classic tennis shoe; when I was in high school, and also middle school, just having a simple pair of all white case Swiss tennis shoes were in. And once again this was great because they were quite affordable, you could buy two pairs of them for only 100 bucks, which was $49 a sneaker.

Weird things nowadays, why is it that in two days world, 2024, almost 20 years later, sneakers are more expensive than they were in the past? Wouldn’t you think that with industrialization, advancements and technology and whatever, that shoes should be cheaper, not more expensive?

For example, is still befuddles me how and why people would spend $200 on a loser Adidas ultra boost shoe, the only reason Adidas became cool was because of Kanye West, yet everyone still likes to hit on him. And also, spending $700 on a Balenciaga Knitted shoe, which also only became popular because of rap music, Cardi B, etc.? And also let us not forget that Demna, Kanye West, their collaboration is actually what made Balenciaga cool as well.

Also, Kanye West is the one who made Kim Kardashian so famous, and also, I think he actually did help Taylor Swift become somewhat famous as well.

“I made that bitch famous, not really but somewhat famous!” – Kanye Famous outtake song

In 2017, I downloaded a unreleased version of the life of Pablo, I think I found it somewhere on Google, Reddit, which was just hosted on Google Drive, which included a bunch of outtake songs, not the final versions of a lot of his iconic songs on the album “the life of Pablo“. One of them which I found fascinating was the one quoted.

***

Why think off the grid?

The reason why I like this idea and notion of “off the grid” thinking is that it is more fun, interesting, creative, and advancing.

Even Nietzsche in one of his books wrote that in order 41 to advance their thinking, one needed some sort of pseudo metaphorical monastic life, in which one had to do a “strict refusal of letters”. Back in the day, we can consider “letters” the same thing as email.

In fact if you really think about it, email, which stands for electronic male, and what is sent in the mail? Letters.

I think the reason why there is so much weird modern day angst about email and letters is that we treated with the same gravity and gravitas as handwritten letters. I think this is bad. Let us bifurcate the two; make real letters long form, written by hand and personal, And let email be more like text messaging. Ideally voice dictated, or even AI generated?

I even like this idea that when you open up your inbox, you could create this funny Gmail email app, or plug-in that every time you actually load up and open up an email in your inbox, the client will automatically populate “confirming receipt of your email, I will get back to you later… And funny, even if you never get back to them… At least you acknowledged receipt of it?

Getting rid of the tedium of every day life.

The purpose of life and living is to live more, not to be behelden to all of these hateful tasks.

For example, not negotiable things like paying your bills and utilities, paying your taxes, etc. But beyond this, a lot of our “obligations”, are not real obligations. Rather, it seems like “busy working “, like all of this BS work you had to do in K-12 education, which both you and the teacher knew was busy work.

Otium vs Negotium

OTM is the Latin Roman notion of leisure. Even the ancient Greeks knew well; the true apex was this virtuous, creative leisure, a life of learning thinking philosophy and advancement.

Even for the ancient Romans, like the stoic sage Seneca, everyone knew that business was a hateful thing, everyone wanted to get rid of their duties, even Seneca and one of his letters is talking to his friend Lucilius, saying that he should stop playing for political office, stop having to manage the price of bushels of wheat etc.

Seneca says, “retire now!”

It doesn’t matter how much you plow the Earth, still, you will be a slave to something!

Ancient.

Thinking more ancient

Doda; defense of the ancients, actually a really good idea entitled because perhaps when it comes to the military, the philosophical concept should be centered around defense, not offense.

For example, ancient Spartans. They were all about defense, defending their city state from outside intervention. For the most part, this part just wanted to be left alone.

This is where politics, international politics, culture and the culture wars is so weird;

Just leave them alone!

For example, if somebody wants to be LGBTQ, whatever; why do you care? Just leave them alone!

I suppose they’re a big issue at hand is when you want to be left alone, and you talk and interact in society a certain way, and then other people don’t leave you alone.

For example, let us say that I refer to a person as, boy, girl, man, woman, whatever; I don’t think anybody should “correct” me; shouldn’t they leave me alone and just let me talk the way I want to talk?

Similarly speaking, if somebody is talking a certain way and I don’t like it… I don’t go and “correct” them– I just ignored, turn away, walk away, and just focus on myself?

Social justice warriors are on both sides

What the right, the conservatives, the alt right doesn’t understand is actually, they are also being a “social justice warrior”; they believe in some sort of righteous Christian God-fearing nation, and as a consequence, they don’t want the LGBTQ people to perform a certain way?

Leave the gays alone!

Also, there seems to be a lot of criticism, this ridiculous Fox News talk of “alphabet soup”. But once again, if someone wants to be a man woman or trans or whatever… Why do you care?

Why thinking ancient is good

I think the big issue in today’s world is a lot of these modern day notions are feeble at best. For example, even though I am a huge fan of Kanye West, listening to some of his interview with Lex Fridman, reading some of the transcript etc.… I think the issue is that Kanye thinks too modernly; using modern analogies like “downloading as much information as I can“, the reason why this is a bad analogy is that we are still stuck in uncritical modes of thinking, which are connected to technology. Technology for the most part is bad, as even the ancients didn’t really care for technology that much.

Technology, tekhne– technician, these were the craftsman, the art creators of the ancient Greek past; for the most part, they were seen as middle-class. The people on top — if we think about ancient Sparta, the Sparta nobility were part soldier warriors, this Spartan hop lights, I suppose you had king Leonidas, who was also on the front lines of battle, putting his own personal life at risk to defend Sparta.

Apparently back in the day, when it came to war and conquest, thinking about Alexander the great etc.… You had to put your own personal life at risk, at stake, if you partook in war.

an interesting idea that Naseem Taleb had was if a certain US military general or politician wanted to go to war, the requirement is that you need at least one blood can to be on the front lines of battle, and as a way, you have some sort of indirect skin in the game.

For example, let us say that we reminded ourselves, the past 10 or 20 years; when all this nonsense about weapons a mess destruction, and apparently the guy who popularized the whole “world is flat “concept, might have indirectly convinced the American public to go to war.

Now that I am a pater — and I have a son, Seneca at almost 3 years old… Let us assume that he grows up and becomes 18 years old or 21 years old, would I be comfortable having him suit up in army combat apparel, give him a gun, and have him fight a census war overseas, simply to regain oil power? No.

Similarly speaking, I think the only legitimate form of war and battle is one about defense. For example, let us say that we went in an alternate time universe, and somehow, the German Nazis invaded the shores of Los Angeles and whatever, and that we had to suit up, arm up, And defend the shores of Long Beach, the Los Angeles airport whatever. Then I would actually not think about it twice; grab a gun or whatever, and defend the shores of American soil from outside enemies.

I think the big issue is that America, people don’t seem to realize that we are the bad guys. Truth be told, all the stuff about Palestine, Gaza, the Gaza strip, and Israel is the red hearing; the big bad guy here is America, American military interventionalism, essentially more or less, the Israel state was created partly by American intervention, because we wanted to secure some sort of military power and influence in the region.

I see a lot of these signs nowadays for “free Palestine“, and some American public hating on Israel, etc. But once again, just read the department of defense website, even the governor general of the US military, I think Lieutenant Austin, quoted and said “we have an ironclad commitment to Israel“. if anything, perhaps we should consider Israel as a new colony of America; just like how South Korea can be considered a military outpost of the United States as well, to protect American interest from North Korea, China, etc.

Who’s on top?

in ancient Greek times, the trend was to avoid anything that had to do with politics, and even war; and instead, the focus was to focus on philosophy. This is an interesting strategy because ultimately, philosophers, and their philosophical thoughts have lasted, whereas Military generals, politicians have not.

For example, everyone knows Aristotle, Plato, Socrates etc. Yet Napoleon has fallen out of vogue, even Alexander the great is not as renowned as he should be.

Technology innovators?

One very underrated tech figure is ERIC Schmidt, the ex Google CEO who built it up into what it is today. Nobody talks about him nor does it seem that anyone cares about him. It is interesting because in fact, ERIC Schmidt has authored many books, the story of Google and beyond; but once again, nobody really knows who he is nor cares for him.

Also Larry Ellison, nobody really knows who he is nor does anyone care. Even Richard Branson, for people my generation nobody really cares for him.

Who has remained relevant? Steve Jobs. Even Jony Ive — i’m a huge fan of him, but nobody really knows who he is anymore nor cares for him. The same thing goes with Steve Wozniak; it seems that the Japanese are crazy about him but once again, no 18-year-old or 12-year-old today knows who he is. Nor cares.

True influentials?

Every 12-year-old kid or 16-year-old kid or a 18-year-old kid nowadays, highschoolers in college students, of course everybody knows who Kanye West is. Same goes with Elon musk. Or at least Tesla cars.

Jeff Bezos, not so much.

So the question is how do certain individuals become so embedded in the public consciousness of certain individuals and age groups, while others don’t?

My first thought is there are some individuals who care too much for money, traditional modes of success, etc. For example I put zero faith in anybody who mentions Napoleon Hill or Steve Covey or anybody who mentions effective habits about something… Or secrets to success, or think and grow rich? None of them is wise.

What do they look like in real life, how tall are they? What is their bodily physique? How does their voice sound?

I was randomly doing some research about Zac Efron, and apparently in real life he is only 5 foot eight? Something people don’t know about me is that I am actually quite tall, around 5 foot 10 1/2, 511, or 181 or 182 cm. of course I am over exaggerating my height, maybe by 5%

The reason why I find this so critical is this:

just go on Amazon prime video and watch the old footage of Napoleon Hill, in his office, he looks like a loser old, emaciated, skeletal looking figure, who is once again to focused on this modern day notion of “success“. Success as the modern day notion, we should just get rid of the concept altogether.

SENECA X ERIC KIM DALL-E 3 AI GENERATED ARTWORK

Bitcoin is Portable

When you’re traveling, going abroad, or deciding to move abroad … you can easily take your Bitcoin with you!

CRYPTO BY KIM

Bitcoin Spartan deadlift Eric Kim ai Dall e 3

Brave new world for photographers and crypto: