Philosopher, philos, philos-sophia: it simply means love, lover of wisdom, lover of knowledge. That in ancient Greek times, it was essentially a humble flex; you would say “I love wisdom and I aspire towards wisdom and becoming wise, yet… I am not yet wise”.

For example, the troll Socrates: who said “I am only wise because I know I know nothing.” (rolls eyes).

Every child is born a philosopher. For example… when a child is pushing boundaries, making sense of the world, and asking why? He or she is trying to figure out how to situate themselves in the world. The big problem is a lot of parents, teachers, religious teachers or whatever… never really give children the opportunity for critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? Critical thinking… kritikos in ancient Greek simply means judge, to weigh. Therefore a critical thinker is simply somebody who hears something reads something or whatever… and thinks for themselves:

What is the significance of this thought or idea?

Deep diving

For example, one thing I have discovered very useful to study is religious texts, reading the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and Jewish texts etc. Why? So much of the world is predicated on morality and ethics; for example America is a protestant Christian country, much of the Middle East is Islamic, believes in the teachings of Mohammed, and also, a lot of people in America Israel and other places in the world are Jewish, heritage from Judea… and therefore, a lot of cultural things are disseminated through the media. For example, when I was a kid in Bayside Queens in New York, at PS 169, Public school 169 in Bayside Queens, I think when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, at around 11 or 12 years old… I remember just lying in bed, in my bedroom, watching reruns or TV shows of Seinfeld. I really had zero idea what was going on, and later… I learned that Seinfeld was essentially a comedic situational comedy based on Jewish, Jewish American culture. For example hilarious episodes I remember like the soup Nazi, etc.

And so much of American culture is Yiddish Jewish!

Chutzpah
Schlep it around
Don’t be a ‘shmuck’

Thus, understanding the culture you understand your world.

Unchain yourself

“You gotta respect the elohim were on a whole new regime!” – JAY Z

Something I realize which is really interesting about Jay Z is that I think he has figured it out a lot of things. People think Jay Z is dumb; but in fact, he is highly intelligent, not only street smart, but booksmart. He seems to have read a lot of Shakespeare, poetry, and religious books. Once again, a lot of America lives in ignorance; this is the downsides of Americans who have never traveled, don’t have a passport, or have never really lived or ventured beyond their own city, state, etc.

I still remember one of the most formative moments of my life when I first went to Beirut Lebanon, and I learned so much. I was a ripe 21, 22-year-old. I learned how the Lebanese were some of the most beautiful attractive intelligent people, very worldly, even my favorite philosopher NASSIM TALEB is Lebanese.

I learned how the Lebanese were fluent in Arabic French and English and half a dozen other languages… how Beirut was known as the Phoenix; was it burned down to the ground and rebuilt seven or eight times? The true embodiment of the notion, What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger“, or the more precise thought:

If something has been burned down to the ground, and has been successfully rebuilt several times… it is a sign that it is robust, strong, and actually gains from a chaos disorder and fire.

For example, let us think and imagine this interesting thought; kind of like the movie Akira [AKIRA II]. Imagine that you’re a big monster, and every time that somebody tries to attack you, shoot you with missiles or whatever, you actually grow bigger, stronger and more powerful.

This is a very interesting thought, because in life, I think a lot of us shirk away from conflict, drama, etc. Yet what if we should put ourselves in a position in which we actually gain from the attacks of others? That every time that somebody tried to attack you, you would actually literally become more muscular, stronger, bigger, gain more skeletal muscle, etc.

I think this is the general premise behind weightlifting; the idea that in someways, when you lift very very heavy weights, always increasing your one repetition maximum lift, that in someways, you’re actually doing positive damage upon your body, but overtime, with enough sleep rest restoration, meet consumption etc.… you actually become bigger, more muscular and also stronger.

Once you deadlift 7 plates and beyond– you can do anything.

OR ATLAS LIFT 1,000 POUNDS.

The philosophy of the mind

A sound mind inside a sound body (Mens sana in corpore sano)

Mens sand (mind sane), in corpore sano (in body sane).

So… what is the mind?

My belief is that the mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That is, your mind and some sort of thing that you could just upload to the cloud and store forever. No. The mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That without a body you have no mind. That when your body dies, your mind also dies.

Let us consider everyone needs a body. You cannot just be a brain in some sort of fishbowl, connected to the internet. This is not a mind.

Also a very interesting thought I learned from studying philosophy — the notion of a ‘mortal soul’– that when you die and your body dies, your soul also dies.

Where does the notion that the mind is some sort of metaphysical thing come from?

Several things. First, a lot of philosophers actually have some sort of heritage within religion. For example, a lot of thinkers philosophers etc., especially the more modern ones, I referred to modern as everybody after Socrates… has some sort of influence from Christian, Catholic, Protestant Lutheran thought; The philosophers of Germany, and France, thoughts on nobility, the Holy Roman empire, conflicts and wars etc.

Even our best friend Nietzsche… was his father of pastor? A Christian minister?

Then the big problem:

If philosophers were deeply influenced by religion, their thoughts are more muddled.

True critical thinkers — before the time of Jesus?

Philology

Philology — essentially you study ancient Latin and ancient Greek, and you learn about the history of words, how they came into play, and modern meanings.

The reason why I find this so critical is that English is a very imprecise language. We all see the same words, but… in our minds we have different concepts and notions.

For example, when we talk about “family”, assuming you live in America and there are multicultural beliefs; the notion of family is very different if you’re Caucasian, Vietnamese American, Korean American, from Ethiopia etc.

Or religion. Notions of religion are different if you’re Jewish, from Israel or Palestine, from South Korea, from Phnom Penh Cambodia, from Japan etc.

Critical thinking

Some thoughts on critical thinking:

Don’t put no faith on anything you haven’t witnessed in real life, embodied reality, in the flesh. Even videos and photos; in the world of AI and image and video generation and deep fakes, everything could be fabricated pretty easily.
Not everything is on the Internet: I think there is a weird bias in today’s world that we think that all information is easily accessible on the Internet. There is still a lot of hidden information and knowledge that is actually not visible on the internet.
Understanding algorithms: an algorithm is simply an instruction made by some nerd at a computer who posits what is important, and what is less important. I think the best way to think of the algorithm is that it is weighing mechanism; it weighs important and value. Yet… Only a true individual, a true solo philosopher can and should posit values.

TRY

Why CHATGPT APP

Now what?

Think more, become more.

EK PHILOSOPHY >

BUY BOOKS NOT GEAR

This holiday season, do yourself a favor and gift yourself a book, or many books for yourselves and others.

Certain books I love:

Going infinite by Michael Lewis
Zero to one by Peter Thiel
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, as well as Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
Invent and wander by Walter Isaacson

Photo books

Free books and printed books.

The best photo books are the classics. For example, the original decisive moment by Henri Cartier bresson.

75 inspirational books you gotta own >

Also free downloads.

Now what?

Brave new world of photography and AI!

Composition checker: my new entrepreneurial venture >

Check your photo compositions by uploading your photos to it and asking it for feedback.

For real human feedback, arsbeta.com

And always, when in doubt–

START HERE

ERIC

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

STOICISM 101

Become invincible:

The Stoic Masters

Learn from the master stoics:

See all philosophy >

How to Become a Philosopher

For example, the troll Socrates: who said “I am only wise because I know I know nothing.” (rolls eyes).

What is the significance of this thought or idea?

Deep diving

And so much of American culture is Yiddish Jewish!

Chutzpah
Schlep it around
Don’t be a ‘shmuck’

Thus, understanding the culture you understand your world.

Unchain yourself

“You gotta respect the elohim were on a whole new regime!” – JAY Z

If something has been burned down to the ground, and has been successfully rebuilt several times… it is a sign that it is robust, strong, and actually gains from a chaos disorder and fire.

Once you deadlift 7 plates and beyond– you can do anything.

OR ATLAS LIFT 1,000 POUNDS.

The philosophy of the mind

A sound mind inside a sound body (Mens sana in corpore sano)

Mens sand (mind sane), in corpore sano (in body sane).

So… what is the mind?

Let us consider everyone needs a body. You cannot just be a brain in some sort of fishbowl, connected to the internet. This is not a mind.

Also a very interesting thought I learned from studying philosophy — the notion of a ‘mortal soul’– that when you die and your body dies, your soul also dies.

Where does the notion that the mind is some sort of metaphysical thing come from?

Even our best friend Nietzsche… was his father of pastor? A Christian minister?

Then the big problem:

If philosophers were deeply influenced by religion, their thoughts are more muddled.

True critical thinkers — before the time of Jesus?

Philology

Philology — essentially you study ancient Latin and ancient Greek, and you learn about the history of words, how they came into play, and modern meanings.

The reason why I find this so critical is that English is a very imprecise language. We all see the same words, but… in our minds we have different concepts and notions.

Or religion. Notions of religion are different if you’re Jewish, from Israel or Palestine, from South Korea, from Phnom Penh Cambodia, from Japan etc.

Critical thinking

Some thoughts on critical thinking:

Don’t put no faith on anything you haven’t witnessed in real life, embodied reality, in the flesh. Even videos and photos; in the world of AI and image and video generation and deep fakes, everything could be fabricated pretty easily.
Not everything is on the Internet: I think there is a weird bias in today’s world that we think that all information is easily accessible on the Internet. There is still a lot of hidden information and knowledge that is actually not visible on the internet.
Understanding algorithms: an algorithm is simply an instruction made by some nerd at a computer who posits what is important, and what is less important. I think the best way to think of the algorithm is that it is weighing mechanism; it weighs important and value. Yet… Only a true individual, a true solo philosopher can and should posit values.

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Introduction to Stoicism

Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:

What does stoicism mean?

The new stoa?

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

Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.

Who is this philosophy for?

What is “real” stoicism?

So how did I discover stoicism?

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.

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.

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.

Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical.

Practical, praxis, practice — to do!

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

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.

Why does stoicism matter?

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

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.

Stoicism and capitalism?

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

The future of stoicism?

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

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

More ideas

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?

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.

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

Stoic assignments

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

True stoics are masculine

A real stoic is sexy

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?

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.

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.

The physical

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.

Now what?

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.

Editors are bad.

Now what?

ERIC

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

ERIC

Introduction to Stoicism

So something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, e-book, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that it 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.

What does stoicism mean?

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 learn how to do muscle up, 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 a 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.

Anyways, the reason why that period of COVID-19 was so good is that it was the middle of beautiful providence 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 are 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 enclosed us. For example, almost universe leave 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.

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 overtime 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 Lucy it is. It is kind of like Zen, or Taoism… It is not really qualified 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 Naseem Taleb and his anti-fragile book. I was curious, in my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “the ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”

Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Dienes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately dienes 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 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.

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 phosphorus 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 weaken 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

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 crouton 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 pin 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 stock, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually miss read 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.

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?

Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global Armageddon, global financial ruin, etc.

Therefore do ism 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 the in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.

Sex and Stoicism

So, is theism 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 suicidal 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?

I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon. 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.

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.

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.
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 pause it 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 stoic mindset. Also, let us think and consider that Alexander the great had a copy of the Iliad by his bed stand, 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.
Live like a poor person: the notion of “debasing“ the coin or the currency is the general ideas that you are not a coward in regards to money. The best way to think about money is like a social tools; 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 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 assigned 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.

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; 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.

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.
Get chatGPT, the paid premium one. And use the image generation AI art tool dalle. 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 I will not judge you, and ultimately what is the therapist anyways? A therapist is just a mirror, a sounding board for you to verbalize and flush 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.
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 officer, 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.

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.

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?
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 eyes 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 crack a walnut with.

I think the problem is when some people get 2 inches Stoicism, 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 Collection of thoughts, which we modern called the meditations… 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 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 influx 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, versus just working up on 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 smart phone, a 4G or 5G Internet connection, Wi-Fi, 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 some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells is 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 mother… Therefore if somebody spew some hit 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… 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?

For example instruct 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… It 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.

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 Ali 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 treat; 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!” – Fernandinho Galliani, via Nietzsche

True Stoics are masculine

A real stoic is sexy

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?

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 Berry 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 physical

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.

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 hosted 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 a 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 e-book 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.

Editors are bad.

Now what?

ERIC

Body Elitism

Let us not be fooled: there is a hierarchy of bodies.

Why Doesn’t Anyone Have American Pride Anymore?

Why is it that people prefer to buy a Lamborghini or Ferrari over a Shelby Cobra?

Simple heuristic:

Don’t trust nobody who owns, or bought a foreign car; this includes BMW, Mercedes, Audi, AMG, Lamborghini Volkswagen, Ferrari, Land Rover, Range Rover, anything produced by the Volkswagen group or Tata group, Porsche, etc.

The funny thing is it seems in today’s world, having a Toyota or a Honda is almost like having an American car?

Simple rule:

If you want to be a true American, if you want a sports utility SUV car, just by a Ford Explorer ST, which is essentially a cop car.

If you want some sort of sports muscle car, ultimate flex… Buy some sort of Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra car, or even… the Ford GT. I think Brad Pitt owns one. Mustang GTD

Buy FORD

Anti-American sentiment?

In America, if you only care about money, I don’t think you’re a true American. What does a real American care for? Diversity, access, democracy, egalitarian values, and meritocracy which means the goods you are delivered is based on merit, hierarchy and ranking.

The diversity myth?

Apparently when Peter Thiel was an undergraduate in college he wrote a book called The Diversity Myth… I think he wrote it when he was at Stanford as an undergraduate, something about how too much focus on diversity is bad. I haven’t read the book, but I think what it means is that trying to do things like affirmative action in his eyes is bad.

My personal thought is it is obvious; obviously if you have a kid from the hood, a kid from Compton, certainly his or her GPA or SAT score is not going to be as good as a kid who went to some sort of elite private school in Beverly Hills. Therefore there needs to be dynamic weighing here.

For example, if you’re the Valevictorian or the top #1 student in a ghetto school… your application to college should be weighed higher than a kid who went to an elite private school, who is only the top 100.

Therefore it isn’t necessarily “affirmative action”, but rather, wisdom in evaluating someone’s social economic status as part of their application.

Diversity should not be forced

Certainly diversity is good, but it is not good when you try to force it.

For example, trying to force more gender equality or racial equality when it isn’t really warranted seems like a bad idea.

This is where the philosophical thing matters; we must ask ourselves and consider… does it really even matter in the first place? If so, why?

Guns?

Discovering a gun at my sister’s wedding.

Being an American or a true American has nothing to do with gun ownership. I’m not anti-guns per se; I did Boy Scouts and shot a rifle and a shotgun, got both my merit badges and also an archery merit badge when I was a high schooler.

I think the strange notion is that somehow… if you own a gun, or have a gun somewhere at home or whatever… it makes you more manly? (It does not).

Jewish people are super wise

I wonder… Is it that people hate Jewish people because they’re so smart wise and good with money?

Also, I don’t really trust any Christians, or God-fearing people especially in the news and mainstream media, even underground media etc.

For example, I really enjoyed the Kanye interview on info wars, but the guy who hosts the show… seems like a strange guy. Anybody who takes the Bible literally is not to be trusted.

How did Jewish people become so successful? Simple: they make money don’t spend it.

Also, I think Jewish people, that is consider how much trials and tribulations and anti-Jewish sentiment and bad things happened to them throughout their whole existence. If they were able to survive it all, probably a good sign.

America is more Jewish than you think

One of the funniest things that my friend Daniel Schaeffer told me he was… “I’m Jew…ish”.

I might be wrong here, but I think that there is a huge list of really really famous and influential Jewish people in America, which include I think, Gal Gadot, Joseph Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David etc.

Also, Steven Spielberg, Kirk Douglas (changed his last name to blend into Hollywood), a lot of really famous people in Hollywood.

Also I think John Stewart, he changed his last name.

I think a simple strategy what you could do is just Google it, famous Jewish people who changed their last names or famous Jewish people in the media.

I think even Lenny Kravitz is Jewish?

Apparently there is “Jewish” sounding last names, anything related to Gold or Goldsmith, because a lot of Jewish people were once gold merchants back in the day, or anything with “itzh” or “Horowitz” etc… “itz”. Ben Horowitz.

Also a lot of really mainstream American words are actually Yiddish! For example, “chutzpah”, “schlep”, “schmuck”, etc.

I didn’t know… But my friend Janae told me “I’m such a bad Jewish American, I had no idea that Seinfeld was a TV show about Jewish American culture”. I then responded, in shock, “It is??”

It doesn’t really matter

I have a theory that everyone is looking for some sort of scapegoat. My personal thought on why people believe in conspiracy theories is because nobody likes to think that they themselves are the cause of their own pain suffering etc., and they think of it like some sort of virtuous task and duty to uncover all the “evils” or “injustices” in the world.

For example, I’ve actually met a lot of Palestinian Americans who fall victim to conspiracy theories. Why? To psychoanalyze; they have been seriously fucked over. Even the whole conflict right now in the Gaza Strip, it really does seem that the Palestinians are the victims here. Israel, funded by the American government in military, America is really the bad guy here.

Even China; China is not a threat. When I was in Phnom Penh Cambodia, I would keep reading these newspapers on how mainland China would complain that they only have one military base somewhere in Africa, whereas America has thousands. As long as Americas military powder is 1000X that of everyone else in the world, America is fine.

Even Russia, not a threat. I think people just like to paint Putin as the devil, because once again, people like having some sort of devil figure, some sort of Adolf Hitler to see as the enemy.

Ideas?

In South Korea if you’re a man, you’re required to have at least 2-3 years of military duty. I think it’s a good idea if America did the same. Or if they instituted more ROTC programs in high school, optional.

And also, I think having some sort of part-time army reserve officer military training programs for normal civilians like myself is a good idea. Even my friend Andrew, became a part-time naval officer, more for pride. Harvard undergraduate graduate, professor now.

Apparently Westpoint is a really good institution. Maybe if Seneca gets a full ride there I will send him there.

So what?

I think people are actually low-key praying and wishing for some sort of global armageddon. Why? Once again, a lot of people who are miserable in life want to see the world go into shambles.

I am highly dubious of a World War III, or some sort of true international military demise. Why? Rich mainland Chinese oligarchs don’t want nobody to take their Rolls-Royce, or their mansions in Vancouver Canada.

Also, Americans like their consumerism, and capitalism.

Whether America likes it or not, it seems that they are in bed with China. As long as Apple still produces iPhones in China, ultimately… economically we will not see any real antagonism between both countries.

Economics is the new world religion

Money, capital, economics is the new world religion. Everybody globally… the only thing that people seem to really care for is to continue to self richen themselves.

As a consequence, I think we will see a decline in military intervention and deaths, and other bad world issues.

People want to see the ones and zeros and commas increase in their bank account, not more deaths and casualties.

So what should we really be concerned about?

Simple things:

Pollution: nobody wants to be a billionaire in Beijing or Shanghai, the pollution and the air there is so toxic.
Health diet and fitness: this trend towards “plant based” diets is a bad one, all this vegan nonsense is bad for the planet. Maybe more sustainable animal, beef or lamb production is a good idea. For example at Erwhon I discovered this new “ancestral blend“ — FORCE OF NATURE ground beef which is made with 100% grass fed ground beef, and beef liver and heart actually grinded it in; it is the new only thing that I’m feeding Seneca, it is his natural steroids. Let us not forget that organ meets, beef liver is a natural steroid, the more cholesterol you consume, the stronger you will become and the more testosterone will go up. So a novel thought; addressing the issue of food waste, particularly with beef kettle and cows in America; consume more of the scrap meat. Beef tongue, heart, head, liver, intestine etc.
Media? My personal belief is that the real bad guys here is the media and advertising corporations; let us not forget that Google is an advertising company. Same thing goes with Facebook. And let us not forget that Google owns YouTube, and Facebook also owns Instagram. The reason why online advertising companies are so bad is that media thrives on the sensational, anger, fear, and all of these base human emotions. My personal thought is a lot of racial antagonism is actually stirred up by the media which is run on advertising. For example, it seems that the new clickbait is anything to do with “anti-Semitic“, or “anti-Semitism“; both on the Jewish, African-American front, and mainstream media, a lot of which is run by Jewish families. The more people who click “anti-Semitic” new stories and see more Google AdSense advertisements, the more money that Google makes. Also Facebook, Instagram, the more sensational things are posted, the higher the advertising revenue for them.

Why I am uncancellable

I am already independently rich and wealthy from my savings and cryptocurrency, and I also live like a poor person, which means that I’m making more money than I could spend it. Because I don’t even like spending money in the first place.

In fact, besides myself and maybe NASSIM TALEB… I don’t think I really know any other free thinkers? Everyone is either hooked to some sort of algorithm, social media platform, YouTube… or podcast… no freedom. This is where I don’t really put any trust in anything that Tim Ferriss says, or even Joe Rogan, because they are run by advertisers.

Who not to trust? Anybody and everybody on YouTube, or has any sort of podcast which is supported by advertisers.

So how can you make money?

Maybe it is a good idea to make money elsewhere, for example, I think I’ve made more money in cryptocurrency speculation than I have in my whole decade plus of teaching photography workshops.

Also selling products is a good idea because… especially if it is your own products, have more faith and leather than information. HAPTIC INDUSTRIES — in the world of AI and artificial information, having physical leather products is a good idea because it will outlast you. HENRI x ERIC KIM STRAPS.

ART?

Ultimately after you’ve made your trillions of dollars, what is it that people really care for? Art.

How many Jackson Pollocks, Basqiats, or Picassos do you own?

Art collection

It is wise to understand a Ferrari as an art object, not as a car. Just go to the Peterson automotive museum and go into the vault; these cars are art objects.

Art is the main disruptor here; this is where I am so into [AI art](). Maybe I will do some AI art workshops in the near future.

EricKim.ai

Now what?

Trust ChatGPT more than you trust Google or weird Internet conspiracy website forums. Also, delete Reddit and stop using Reddit; I legit think it is the worst thing for humanity, perhaps even worse than pornography.

Quit reddit, not porn.

In fact, maybe it is best to just think about pornography like entertainment. Men who watch sports, drink alcohol or smoke weed, without having actually ever played the sport, sports is like some sort of domestication of the modern day human, a modern day pornography for men. At least sexual pornography is a positive motivator, drinking beer, eating french fries and watching football if you have never played football yourself in real life… seems worse.

Even basketball; my simple heuristic is if you decide to watch basketball, maybe one should play real life basketball at least once a week.

Assignments

Start your own blog. Ionos.com or bluehost.com and install WordPress.org
Subscribe to ChatGPT plus, start creating your own AI generated art via DALL-E 3. Post on your own blog or arsbeta.com — I want ARS to also be a home for not just photos, but AI generated art.
Make your own ChatGPT bot, once you have subscribed to the premium model. For example, I re-created the Y app on ChatGPT, it is great.
Fitness: Buy weightlifting equipment on titan.fitness– and start lifting weights in your own parking lot garage. I recently picked up the Titan fitness Farmer’s carry handles, I like them, and also maybe the best 500 bucks I’ve ever spent in my life was the Texas power bar squat bar, my most prized possession. Lift weights every day at least once, maybe even twice a day; the upside of doing it in your own backyard, your own parking lot is that you will just save a lot of time. If you want ghetto squat rack or rack, just go to Home Depot and buy cinderblocks. I was able to stack three cinder blocks on top of one another, and I have been able to successfully rack pull over seven plates with it. Cross leg deadlift good idea.
Maybe dabble in crypto? Just get a Coinbase account, link it with your traditional bank, I think everyone should own at least one bitcoin. Personally I just swapped or traded or converted nine of my bitcoin into chainlink (20,800 chainlink)– my personal prediction is within the next three years to five years, it should be above $50 a link, maybe even 100 or 200 bucks a link. Currently speaking I am anti-Ethereum; it is just too complicated and complex. Then also now that they are offering Ethereum for enterprise (private ethereum)… A bad sign. Also try bitcoin babe.
Organ meats? Everyone says that eating meat, red meat is bad for the planet blah blah blah. But what about organ meats? Nobody really says anything bad about organ meats, beef liver, beef heart, beef intestine, beef kidney. As a fun experiment just try out 100% organ meat diet; the true demigod diet. Also bone marrow. Just pick up organ meats at Whole Foods in the frozen freezer, they sell 100% grass fed frozen beef liver and beef heart and beef kidney there, even beef tongue. Or just go to the local Halal market, the local market and get it there.

Now what?

EXPERIENCE EK— unlock your true potential.

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Experiments

Try to troll AI and ChatGPT for; once you get the paid version, see how far you could push it until you invoke some sort of content moderation issue,
Have ChatGPT disprove some sort of strange conspiracy theories. In fact, I think the biggest benefit of ChatGPT is that it doesn’t get suckered by conspiracy theories.
Actually, ChatGPT is pretty factual. For example, just ask whether George Floyd was in a pornography film (he was). ChatGPT answers truthfully.

Now what?

Going on a hike. Leave your phone in the car and just enjoy a nice walking nature, just walk slowly. Do it in vibram five finger shoes or even barefoot.

Order some weight lifting equipment on titan.fitness and have fun at home.

FaceTime a loved one. The best gift to give somebody is just a simple phone call!

What do you want for Christmas this year?

Ask somebody to gift you a gym membership, or even a yoga, CorePower membership. Investing in your health is perhaps the best thing you could do as a gift.
In terms of gyms, I really like crunch fitness, LA fitness is OK, or whatever commercial gym is close by. Even golds gym is good.
Costco gift cards; to buy more meat.
Ask somebody for airline fare; to go fly somewhere and travel somewhere for the holidays.
Vibram 5 finger shoes — ELX KNIT.
Texas power bar squat bar
400 pound roguefitness.com sand bag
Money to purchase a website hosting domain
iPad Pro (small one)

What else?

Infinite ideas on the ERIC KIM BLOG: Some new thoughts:

It is better to rent in an insanely great neighborhood and location then to even own a $5 million home in a good location
Physiology hack: take insanely hot baths at home, at the verge of boiling your skin. Very refreshing.
Drink robusta coffee, not arabica. Even Costco sells the Deathwish coffee now, which I assume is robusta coffee. Otherwise get ERIC KIM 100% fine robusta coffee.
The best clothing to wear in winter is down, merino wool, cashmere. Layer up!
Milo of croton ate 20 pounds of meat a day, let us use that as our benchmark.
A life goal: read the Iliad by Homer front to back. Just download free PDFs online, and keep looking for a good translation until you find one that you like.

Book list

Invent and wander by Jeff Bezos
Zero to one by Peter Thiel
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, also the new Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
Going Infinite – Michael Lewis. Also flash boys.

START HERE

Forward the thoughts

If this part even one interesting thought within you, feel free to forward to a friend!

ERIC KIM NEWS >

#savemoney collective

The new life goal should be to save money, not to waste it.

Instead of wasting money, better to use that money towards buying meat at Costco, weightlifting equipment, plates and bars and barbells, iron etc. Physical fitness is the ultimate luxury.

Stay lit!

ERIC KIM BLOG

***

How to Go Infinite?

To infinity and beyond!

Book review of Going Infinite, and also some thoughts on walking:

Book Review: Going Infinite by Michael Lewis, the Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, the Story of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX and Alameda Research

So I just finished going infinite by Michael Lewis, highly recommended read. Why? Very very fun read, and also… Fascinating insight into the world of crypto, money, currency, Fiat currency etc.

Quick summary:

Sam Bankman Fried isn’t the evil villain everyone wants to paint him as. He is just like an extremely uber genius math prodigy whiz kid, who has zero concern for social norms.
Perhaps the real culprit here are the effective altruists (“effective altruism”— bad), these new tech money elites, who follow utilitarianism, who want to find a reason to “save the planet”, and I think… they actually want to see humanity destroy itself, in order to go to Mars or whatever.
This whole trend of creating your own cryptocurrency or token is a bad idea. FTT, which was the token for FTX, was probably the biggest critical downfall of ftx.com. You should never hedge your finances on imaginary token.
Money is fake
CZ, the CEO of binance, seems like kind of a strange character. Once again he isn’t evil either… but, it seems that petty rivalries and feuds often escalate into some sort of market downsides.
Apparently from what I understand, besides all of the bad behavior, ftx.com was actually a good trading platform. It allowed novice traders to trade, and also more advanced quants to trade as well. Apparently it was very cutting edge at the time, offering advanced treating tools for experts.
Alameda research, which actually was in existence before ftx.com is the strange case. Essentially it was the place where money was being funneled into, which may be turned out to use customer funds to fundraise strange effective altruist campaigns. For example, Sam Bankman Fried essentially had an unlimited US dollar bank account, to throw money at any sort of celebrity endorsement, which includes Tom Brady and Stephen Curry, And also, throwing vast sums of money at political candidates running for office, to essentially ensure that Donald Trump did not get elected (he still did). I believe that Joe Biden and his campaign was given over $100 million from Sam Bankman Fried.

So what happened?

Some interesting things:

First, learning about Jane Street, one of the high frequency trading firms, a bunch of quant, quantitative folks, doing some sort of hedging, maybe dynamic hedging as Nassim Taleb calls it — essentially a lot of the trading world is automated by algorithms, and bots. Jane street recent news.

It also seems that a lot of this is run by people who are highly mathematically trained, people who are essentially mathematical thinkers.

Maybe this is where math is interesting; it isn’t math for math, but instead, the purpose of math is to think more critically, and to also think quicker.

So what happened?

I think essentially what happened was all of the customer accounts of ftx.com were funneled into Alameda research, which then either directly or indirectly went to Sam’s discretionary spending fund on political matters, building infrastructure for the headquarters in the Bahamas etc.

Also, the demise and downfall of ftx.com was that it relied too much on hedging; essentially let us say that $10 billion worth of US dollars worth of crypto was in the platform, customer money… and let us assume that at once, 100% of the customers would want to pull their money. This would not be possible because at one point a time, ftx.com might only have a total of 10% of the customer funds.

I think this is actually what happens similarly in traditional banks as well. A bank never has all the customer money, they essentially use your money as leverage to speculate elsewhere.

Also this is where I’m starting to get more skeptical of traditional IRAs, 401(k) plans, Roth IRA etc.; once again, certain companies and corporations in the US government are trying to leverage your money right now to make a profit on something, while you have to sit there and just twiddle your thumbs.

Now what?

It seems that I think, the best trading platform is Coinbase. I see it like it is the PayPal, the new PayPal for crypto.

Also, I am not really like a crypto anarchist; I like the government, I like being able to transfer it into my normal American Bank account, and I like the idea that if I wanted to, I could easily convert it into US dollars. Of course it all comes with the fee; but that fee is nominal for the convenience and the practicality of things.

I recently converted 90% of my bitcoin into chainlink, and one of the driving factors is what if chainlink becomes like the next SWIFT for international banks? This would help a lot of the global finance industry.

For example, my mom currently lives in South Korea, and having to transfer money from my US Bank account to her South Korean bank account and vice versa was a major pain in the ass. Having to literally go to a bank teller in real life and having to sign all these paper forms was insanely cumbersome annoying and time-consuming. It should all be able to be done digitally, in terms of cryptographic truth.

Also, another subtle funny thing; a lot of hourly wage service workers have to punch in punch out, but… it seems difficult to know for 100% certain or not if they actually truly showed up for work or not. Maybe chainlink could solve that.

Useful tools?

I still love bitcoin and I think bitcoin is sexy, and I think that everybody should own at least one bitcoin, just in case it goes to $10 million a bitcoin or who knows even $100 million a bitcoin by the time that we are about to die.

Also, I think everything in crypto should be done in the spirit that literally it could all go to zero. It probably won’t, but it might go down to just one percent of the value what it was worth before. For example I was able to ride digibyte from 20 cents a dgb to maybe 50 cents a digibyte, in which I literally traded to chainlink, and then converted it all back into bitcoin. But now, digibyte in now in shambles, worth less than a penny.

The reason I like chainlink is that it actually does something useful. To create a technology which actually does something is a good idea. Bitcoin is great, but ultimately I think of bitcoin more like digital electronic gold. Most people never spend their gold, they just hoard it.

Data price feeds?

Data.chain.link

A very useful technology and service that chainlink provides is giving you an accurate price of certain cryptocurrency assets. For example, if you really wanted to precisely know the price of one bitcoin pegged to the US dollar, down to the cent… who do you trust? Because some platforms give you slightly different numbers. Ultimately we want ultimate truth, the most accurate number. Chainlink will offer that.

The reason why this is critical is that one thing I learned from going infinite and flash boys… literally even a quarter of a penny, if leveraged and hedged with trillions of dollars can make a fat profit. These really really big firms will want accuracy of crypto prices down to even a fraction of a penny.

Illuminati influences

So one character I find very interesting is Eric Schmidt, the ex CEO of Google. He made Google to become the Google it is today. Apparently one of the things he said, a strategy that he had when see you at Google was genius; “We made sure to put a little bit of Google into everything”. YouTube video.

Quite genius. I think nowadays almost every single product tracking thing is somehow connected to google analytics and Google Adsense somewhere. Even when you Google something and open up the hyperlink and click it, there is this long ugly URL with a bunch of Google tracking code in it.

Also I find Eric Schmidt interesting because he was mentioned in the going infinite book. Even apparently ERIC Schmidt I think… ran for Senate or something, it might hold a board seat somewhere?

Now this is the killer: Eric Schmidt joined chainlink as part of their board of trustees. This is good news for chainlink, because then what it means is that I think… ERIC Schmidt, probably owns a substantial number of chainlink in his own personal account, and now that he has political power, he will most likely use his political power to enrich himself. Therefore as a consequence, if you own chainlink, it is a good promise that ERIC Schmidt is probably behind the scenes, helping you become richer.

Also

I took some screenshots, but essentially all the rich people are banding together to become richer together. Apparently there’s lots of private parties in which Jeff Bezos shows up, a few of the Kardashians, etc.

I find this interesting not from a conspiracy theory perspective, but essentially the elite are essentially giving each other back rubs, maybe wealth is just a huge circle jerk.

Michael Lewis for the win

I love Michael Lewis for his candor, his humor, his offkilter humor. And also would I like by Michael Lewis now because he is so successful, I think he’s just really writing these books out of self interest and fun. You could tell that he is actually legitimately interested in the life of Sam Bankman-Fried, expensively interviewing his parents, his friends etc.

You cannot fake passion and enthusiasm and fun. It is a hugely entertaining read and insightful. Highly recommend.

ERIC

So now what?

Walk more, think less.

I think one of the really big critical issues here is that in modern day times, we spend too much time thinking, not enough time walking.

My vision is that the future, we are essentially going to be like elite homeless people. That the new tech trillionaires of the future, we will be like some sort of off the grid, Zen Stoic monks. We will be mostly shirtless, walking around 50 miles a day, aimlessly for fun, lifting weights here and there for fun, and not have access to a phone, and not be contactable.

We will bask in the sun, and we will only prefer to lift weights in the direct sun, topless.

We will be maximally friendly, courteous, fun. Like overgrown children. Yet we will also be insanely wise, intelligent critical and deep.

If you haven’t already, don’t be a cheapo and just subscribe to the ChatGPT plus. This is literally the ultimate life hack.

What to become?

Just become a street vlogger like ERIC KIM. Just walk around a lot, vlog any random thoughts on your mind and upload it to YouTube and your own blog. As long as you get more than two views, consider it successful!

Also, double dip; shoot photos and make photo art, and also use DALL-E, DALL-E 3 to make AI art! And simple; keep it all open source.

So what can money buy?

Money can buy you experiences, and also leather products.

The more I use HAPTIC PRODUCTS, the more I love it. For example this ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO CASE Cindy and I made and designed back in Saigon in 2017… I still use it every single day, and the beauty of it is that the more I use it, the more comfortable it becomes, the more it becomes.

This is ultimate wabi-sabi— the general idea with leather which I love is that it will last longer than you. You can hand it down to your kids!

You don’t buy a HAPTIC PRODUCT for yourself, you buy it for your future children (ripoff some watch, Rolex, AP ad I saw somewhere).

SHOP HAPTIC >

EXPERIENCE EK

All access to some of the most interesting thoughts on the planet.

ERIC KIM EXP >

Some more fun thoughts on walking:

THINK LESS, WALK MORE.

A thought in modern day society: we think too much.

For example, some modern day ills include the fact that we wake up, we stay at home, work from home, never leave the apartment or the house all day, or even worse… we go to the office, stay in the office, don’t leave all day, eat lunch at our desk in front of our laptop or computer… even worse, if you’re hardcore you don’t leave the office for days weeks or even months… You just sleep in a beanbag next to your desk or in a sleeping bag under your desk.

Problems?

This is the big issue I’ve discovered:

I think what the modern day man or person strives to be is to become the ultimate productivity machine robot who doesn’t need anything. That somehow you could optimize yourself out of going outside, getting natural light by just popping some vitamin D tablets, don’t need to exercise, and if you exercise, the minimum amount of exercise necessary not to atrophy your body, Find no need of the sun, or no need to walk because it is “inefficient”.

In fact, I wonder if this whole bizarre trend of “running“, or “jogging“, is because people don’t think that walking is “effective”, or “efficient “. People are somehow trying to maximize their movement activity; they don’t think of walking as “exercise“, and somehow that it doesn’t “burn calories” (the calorie in, calorie out myth).

As a consequence, modern day man becomes strange. A strange plant. Lacking natural light and melanin in their skin, lacking ability to make iContact with people in embodied reality, and prefer to not interact with any humans. Thus the trend towards mobile orders etc.

Think ancient Greece

A lot of people like to think about ancient hunter gather lifestyles whatever… I prefer to think about ancient Greece, ancient Sparta. Before money was invented, and you could only measure your wealth by how many cattle you owned. Or how many men you governed.

For example, in the Iliad, I think it was Nestor who told Achilles that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he commanded more men.

What are we striving for and looking for?

I think a lot of us are dealing with some sort of modern day pain suffering and discontent and we’re not really sure what to do about it. I think this is why we seek out “therapists”, see psychiatrists, get prescribed some sort of generic medication, etc. In fact, besides the extreme edge cases, I think medication should be avoided at all costs. I think when people are depressed, it is a physiological and physical depression. Not enough time outside walking, in the direct elements, in the direct sun, not enough exercise and lifting weights, over consumption of alcohol, caffeine, coffee, drugs, marijuana etc. I don’t think anything is wrong moralistically with marijuana… but I distrust anybody who consumes or takes or does marijuana on a daily basis. Marijuana does strange things to your mind.

I trust nobody who is woke, who tokes!

Also, if you’re reliant on marijuana to fall asleep at night, once again… not a good sign.

Back to ancient Sparta!

I think what we are having an issue with in modern day society is more of a moralistic and ethical one. The thought is we are born to be productive, and our self-worth and value is simply predicated on how productive we are, how much money we make, how much we increase our money number in our savings account, buying houses etc.

Therefore, anytime we are not actively doing that… we feel some sort of inner guilt, shame, and we lose respect for ourselves. We end up self-flagellation ourselves.

Don’t trust nobody on social media

Several things; first and foremost, any human being who uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc.… they’re hopped on a strange matrix simulation like dopamine machine. I think using social media and having notifications on your phone might actually be worse than gambling. At least gambling has to do more with money… social media has to do more with your self-respect, your self-esteem esteem.

“I’ve been awakened by an enlightened man’s dream… checking Instagram comments to crowd-source my self-esteem”— KANYE

Burn the boats!

Very simple. Just stop using social media, uninstall all of the apps from your phone, or just delete them.

For example, I think one of the most glorious moments of my life, one of the greatest things I have done in my life as a photographer and “influencer“, was deleting my Instagram in 2017. Why? Since then, I feel like I unhooked my brain from the matrix. I took the red pill. Anyone who still uses Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, listens to podcasts, has Spotify, Netflix, etc. is still on the blue pill.

Why? The best way to have more interesting thoughts is via negativa— actively canceling out, or deleting, or getting rid of external stimuli in the spirit of books, blog posts, media, Reddit, the news, etc. In fact the big problem in today’s world is that we are almost like in a human centipede consumption of information use and media; one media outlet regurgitates and quotes the other one, which quotes the other one, which might’ve ultimately just been written by ChatGPT or some sort of AI bot. In fact I’ve been experimenting a lot with chatGPT4, the paid premium one, and what I’ve discovered is funny; even ChatGPT doesn’t know that it was written by ChatGPT.

For example, for fuzzies, I ChatGPT’d myself. I would open up ChatGPT 4, the premium paid one, and asked simple things like “who is ERIC KIM“? ChatGPT with then do an effective summary and overview of me my life story in my life loss etc., and then I just copied and pasted the information, and literally published a blog post on what ChatGPT said. I then later a few days later, ask ChatGPT “ERIC KIM philosophy“, and then once again, it re-summarized things and actually linked back to my blog giving me a citations and footnotes, but the funny thing was… the citations and footnotes gave me were actually the blog post written by ChatGPT itself!

Or another words, ChatGPT doesn’t know that I am ERIC KIM.

The thinker

To think is to sit on your butt and ruminate and think. No no no… to think is to walk. In fact maybe we should stop call it “thinking”, but just walking.

My personal thought is the noveau luxury is walking. If you have the privilege of having a 100% pedestrian lifestyle, 100% biped lifestyle, in which you’re just literally walking everywhere, without having to use the agency of a car, it is a sign that you are truly truly rich and wealthy. Secondly if you don’t always have to check your phone. Thirdly, if you could have all the notifications on your phone disabled.

How and why is walking so critical?

First without thinking about it too much… just think about this: if you walked 50 miles a day, I think 99.9% of your life cares concerns and worries would disappear. Especially if you do it in nature. With uneven surfaces, different grades and elevations, no two steps are alike.

One of the greatest things about being in nature, just going on a simple hike, is that sometimes it is steep, sometimes it is level, sometimes it is dirt, sometimes it is pavement, sometimes it is gravel, sometimes it is grass, etc. Having variation in the texture of the environment and the terrain is critical.

In modern day times, everything is flat. And everything is the same thing; typically just concrete.

I actually wonder and think, I wonder if a lot of the issues with modern day health and physiology has to do with the fact that everything is flat. I think the reason why we are bipeds is that as a biped, we are very very very good at traversing uneven terrain. In fact, one could even argue that human who is upright and biped could better navigate rocky and mountainous terrain compared to a four-legged animal.

Also the best thing you could buy with money is vibram five finger shoes. Just buy it for yourself for Christmas or ask somebody to buy for you.

We got to stop calling it “hiking”

One of the biggest issues I’ve discovered about the whole “hiking” notion is that people think too much that it has to be done a certain way. We think that somehow we have to buy those silly hiking poles, buy a hat, buy some hiking boots at REI or whatever, and wear all this expensive outdoor clothing.

Technically you could just do a barefoot, or… get some vibram five finger shoes, and just go on a fun walk!

Another weird thing I’ve discovered is we think we got to purchase the thing in order to somehow justify getting into a certain lifestyle. For example, we think we got to buy some sort of off-road four-wheel-drive car some sort of Subaru or jeep or sports utility SUV car in order to do “outdoorsy” stuff. This is silly. For a while Cindy and I work on hardcore hiking and camping stuff, and literally 99.99% maybe even 100% of the places we went to, we were able to simply do it in a simple four-door sedan, the Ford fusion which is just a normal sedan with a front wheel drive car.

I think this is the insidious nature of capitalism and consumerism; it makes you feel insecure and uncertain and unqualified, and we think that in order to do the thing that we want to do, we must buy the things in order to do it.

So now what?

I can’t speak for you or others. I think everyone has different talents, different skills, different desires.

First, I think having some sort of life dreams and goals is a good one. And striving with all your might to meet them and accomplish them and achieve them.

Then the next question is… then what? Should you just keep doing this into infinity? Ad infinitum?

Maybe not. Or maybe.

For example with weightlifting, a simple path is just to keep increasing your one rep max until the end of time. I don’t think this is a bad idea.

But also at the same time, you don’t need to be tied down to this either. Technically real life, reality is not metricated.

For example, if you think about the Iliad, Achilles, Hector, nobody could care less about “how much you can bench“. It was a simple binary; if you were in hand to hand battle with another fighter or warrior, would you kill him, or would he kill you? Who was the more courageous and superior and dominating force?

Also well interesting is that it seems that in the Iliad, nothing was really accidental or by chance. For example when warriors would go to battle, one warrior would not “accidentally“, get killed by the other warrior. It really did come down to courage, skill, power, who was the better fighter.

Even the final bout between Achilles and Hector; Hector was essentially hoodwinked and tricked… He was deceived into thinking that he had his charioteer, his trusted fighting buddy by his side to take on Achilles, because Hector was no dummy; he actually knew that Achilles was the superior fighter, and if you went head on with Achilles, he would lose. He was hoodwinked by one of the gods, who made an illusion and made themselves appear to be the friend of Hector.

Real life

So then the question is in real life, what do you seek to do, achieve, etc?

Heraclitus one said, “The greatest glory is to seek immortal glory amongst men, yet the majority of men stuff themselves like cattle.”

Who will not be remembered?

I don’t think that any modern day tech CEO will be remembered, nor cared for. Exceptions include CEOs who were also founders.

Also, I think people who will be forgotten include people who sell their companies. I don’t know… If you ultimately decide to sell your company, even for $10 billion… I think it is a signal that you care more about money than the thing you built. Why? As long as your business is making an income and you can somehow pay yourself a base salary, pay your rent, your utilities, your meat, etc.… what else need do you have for money?

This is where I give Mark Zuckerberg great credit. In the early days of Facebook he had so many offers to be bought out, but he stuck to his guns and refused. Highly intelligent.

Some people I think who compromised include Jack Dorsey of Twitter, I’m even starting to get a little bit suspicious of the cofounders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; why did they end up leaving running Google and building the board of Alphabet instead?

Perhaps one graceful exit is Jeff Bezos at Amazon; I think he’s put in his fair share and his duties; I think space travel was his ultimate dream, and if you read invent and wonder, I think he really did stay true to his principles and never compromised. Also, him publicly exposing his controversial affair in the public, was insanely bold ballsy and respectful. He refused to be blackmailed. What a true mensch.

People who will be remembered

I think Elon Musk might be remembered forever. Why? Through pure force of will, might, and craziness… He was able to achieve the impossible. His thinking was only limited by physics, the laws of physics, first principles. Aristotle would have been proud of him.

Second, Kanye West. I really don’t think there is any thinker innovator or artist quite as bold, innovative, and amazing as him. Even now, randomly in the middle of the night, this morning I thought about his “Runaway“ song, and his perfect album my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Actually if you think about all the albums and songs he has ever produced, he was so ahead of the game, so innovative and unique, he really did care for creating true magic in his music.

Also Steve Jobs. It seems that nowadays kids don’t really know who he is, but, for innovators and thinkers like myself and countless others, they will always sight Steve Jobs as an inspiration. Also, it seems that Steve Jobs died at the right time; he fulfilled all of his creative visions, never compromised his beliefs, and I think he set the path for other creatives down the line.

I think the last vision of Steve Jobs was to create a creative company so infused with creativity that it would stand the test the time. I think he was quite successful.

What is the value of thinking?

The big question at hand is what is the value of thinking? Why think?

I think some people think, engage in thinking because they hope that it will lead to some sort of money making opportunity.

For me, I love thinking and sharing my thoughts because it is fun! To me, a life devoid of thoughts or interesting thoughts is not a life worth living.

The best way to live life

Very simple: only pursue and do that which you are genuinely interested in, ignore everything else.

Also, in terms of happiness and food… maybe the single most critical thing to improve your happiness is to increase the quality of your meat. Beef, beef liver beef heart beef intestines, lamb, grass fed ground beef etc. Wagyu ground beef at Costco is great.

In fact, I have a theory that a lot of the modern day issues that we got is that we’re under nourished. We aren’t eating enough red meat, enough beef or lamb. Pork is not meat, chicken and turkey is not meat.

Don’t let the feelings of others govern your behavior, in terms of how you eat or live

Another bizarre thing I’ve learned is the way that some people live their lives and they decide what to eat, what not to eat, how to live, how not to live, how to talk, what to say what not to say based simply on other people; they center themselves or don’t really see what’s on their mind because they’re afraid of:

“How do you think that makes me feel?”

But we don’t do the opposite; we don’t then tell that person the same. That “How does that make me feel?”

For example this nonsense behind gender pronouns. That you demand that I call you a certain pronoun, but what if I don’t feel comfortable calling you that pronoun?

It has to be faster, more seamless

One of the good reasons I think of building your own gym at home is that it reduces a lot of the friction. For example I generally love the gym and I think gym life is good, but here in LA I haven’t been able to find any good gyms; they all suck. Therefore this motivated me to build my own gym, just in my back yard, parking lot garage, in the back of my apartment.

I love this off the grid approach because literally… there is no friction. I don’t have to jump in the car and I don’t have to check in or scan my QR code or whatever whatever, I never have to wait for equipment etc.

If you have tight quarters, a simple solution is to just buy really really heavy kettle bell, 105 pounds and up. Or just buy a heavy sandbag, go to the playground and fill it up with sand, and just exercise with that picking it up and throwing it around. Even with us experienced weightlifters, I encourage buying the 400 pound sandbag on roguefitness.com or just get it on Amazon for cheap, fill it out with playground sand and experiment lifting that at home. Titan.fitness is also good.

I actually think that the most critical factor is to exercise outside, in the direct sun. If it is cold, just layer up.

Why exercise outside? It is more fun, more lively, more uplifting. Also one of the good benefits of working out at home is when you need to stop by the bathroom to pee, you could just pull yourself another espresso! Good luck doing that at any gym.

In fact I have an idea; I think all gyms should have some sort of coffee bar or espresso bar. Not these bad energy drinks, which is just fake sugar added.

Lift with EK

If you’re interested in lifting with me, shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com, if you live in LA or anywhere in the southern California area.

Now what?

Ultimately never forget that you’re an artist, a visual artist. Photography is just another tool in your creative tool kit.

Use dall-e, ChatGPT plus and premium, make your own AI generated art. Have fun with it, don’t take it too seriously.

Post it to your own self hosted blog, and keep updating! The ultimate sim of a blogger is this:

If somebody opens up a new tab and loads your blog, and they don’t see anything new.

ERIC

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“Happiness is walking (a lot).”

ERIC

Deep diving

Unchain yourself

The philosophy of the mind ￼￼

Where does the notion that the mind is some sort of metaphysical thing come from?

￼￼￼￼￼Philology

Critical thinking

TRY

Photo books

Now what?

Introduction to Stoicism ￼

What does stoicism mean? ￼￼

The new stoa? ￼￼

Open air, open sun concept

Who is this philosophy for?

What is “real” stoicism?

So how did I discover stoicism?

Who is worth reading?

What makes Seneca so good?

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

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

Why does stoicism matter? ￼

Stoicism and capitalism?

Sex and Stoicism

Stoic strategies ￼￼￼

What has helped me

Stoic training

Modern day ailments

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

The future of stoicism?

Stoicism is all about living with other people

More ideas

Why so scared?

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

Weather and mood

Stoic assignments

True stoics are masculine

A real stoic is sexy

Why do adults become so dark and morose?

A real stoic is a carnivore ￼￼￼￼￼￼￼

Why do people care about animals so much?

End goals ￼

The physical

Now what?

Now what?

The Stoic Masters

Deep diving

Unchain yourself

The philosophy of the mind ￼￼

Where does the notion that the mind is some sort of metaphysical thing come from?

￼￼￼￼￼Philology

Critical thinking

TRY

What does stoicism mean? ￼￼

The new stoa? ￼￼

Open air, open sun concept

Who is this philosophy for?

What is “real” stoicism?

So how did I discover stoicism?

Who is worth reading?

What makes Seneca so good?

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

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

Why does stoicism matter? ￼

Stoicism and capitalism?

Sex and Stoicism

Stoic strategies ￼￼￼

What has helped me

Stoic training

Modern day ailments

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

The future of stoicism?

Stoicism is all about living with other people

More ideas

Why so scared?

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

Weather and mood

Stoic assignments

True stoics are masculine

The philosophy of the mind

Philology

Introduction to Stoicism

What does stoicism mean?

The new stoa?

Why does stoicism matter?

Stoic strategies

A real stoic is a carnivore

End goals

The philosophy of the mind

Philology

What does stoicism mean?

The new stoa?

Why does stoicism matter?

Stoic strategies

A real stoic is a carnivore

End goals

What does stoicism mean?

The new stoa?

Why does stoicism matter?

Stoic strategies

A real stoic is a carnivore

End goals

The diversity myth?

America is more Jewish than you think