• Street Photography Contact Sheets

    PDF LINK

    Also, mirror PDF

    VOLUME 1

    PDF VOLUME 1

    Also mirror PDF


  • Move Weight Picks


  • Happy Supreme Picks


  • Favorites


  • PHOTOGRAPHY 101

    PHOTOGRAPHY 101

    Dear friend,

    If you’re new to photography, start here:

    1. The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Photography
    2. Free Photography Bootcamp
    3. 100 Photography Tips for Beginners

    Photography is Everything!

    1. In Praise of Shadows
    2. Photography Leisure
    3. FOCUS ON PHOTO
    4. Closer is Better
    5. POWER PHOTOGRAPHY
    6. Film Noir Compositions in Photography
    7. RAW PHOTOS.
    8. The Photographer as Story Teller
    9. Photograph Your Own History
    10. THE INTRINSIC JOY OF PHOTOGRAPHING
    11. My Desire to Become the Uber-Photographer
    12. How to Become a More Creative Photographer
    13. IMPACTFUL PHOTOGRAPHY
    14. My Higher Mission
    15. Photograph Human Affairs
    16. Why is Photography So Pleasurable?
    17. How to Shoot More Photos
    18. Why Do You Shoot Photos?
    19. Photo Zen Sublime
    20. Photo Wisdom
    21. How to Make a Digital Portfolio
    22. How to Master Photography
    23. Digital Photography 101
    24. My Photos
    25. Natural Photography
    26. Fit Your Photography Style to Your Personality Style, Not the Other Way Around
    27. 13 New Photography Assignment Ideas for You
    28. Photography Ideas
    29. Camera is God
    30. Put Your Hand In It!
    31. Even a Single Hair Casts Its Own Shadow
    32. PHOTOS RULE EVERYTHING AROUND ME
    33. Shoot More, Think Less.
    34. Why JPEG is Superior to RAW
    35. How to Have Inspiration and Motivation to Make New Photos
    36. Shoot the Sky
    37. The Art of Choosing Your Best Photos: How to Cull and Edit Down Your Portfolio
    38. The Art of Photography
    39. Never Stop Photographing
    40. Visual Kinesthesia
    41. Photography is Writing with Light
    42. In Praise of Shooting Intelligent Auto JPEG
    43. How I Mastered Photography
    44. PHOTOGRAPHY GAME
    45. Photography as Discovering Beauty in Unlikely Places
    46. What is the Secret of Making Great Photographs?
    47. Why Do You Do Photography?
    48. You’re an Artist.
    49. How to Edit Your Photos

    Photography Tips

    1. PHOTOGRAPH FOR FUN!
    2. 15 Tips How to Make More Interesting Photos
    3. 10 Tips How to Shoot More Photos Everyday
    4. 7 Tips How to Shoot Surreal Photos
    5. 10 Tips How to Fill the Frame in Photography
    6. Look Up! 16 Photography Composition Perspective Tips
    7. 10 Simple Black and White Photography Tips
    8. 10 Simple Black and White Photography Tips
    9. 5 Simple Street Photography Composition Tips
    10. 5 Simple Street Photography Composition Tips

    Photography Articles

    Mad men. NYC, 2017. Pentax 645Z

    1. How to Elevate Your Photography to the Next Level
    2. You’re (Already) a Photographer!
    3. 7 Tips How to Shoot More Photos
    4. Everything is Permitted in Photography!
    5. 20 Dark Tips How to Shoot Shadow Photos
    6. How to Give a Constructive Critique in Photography
    7. 15 Tips How to Shoot Better Selfies
    8. Photography is All a Matter of Perspective
    9. Photography Warmup Assignments
    10. 5 Simple Tips How to Take Better Pictures
    11. 10 Tips How to Shoot Better Architecture Photography
    12. 7 Reasons Why I Love Digital Medium-Format Photography
    13. My Experience Shooting Digital Medium Format in Street Photography
    14. My Experience Shooting my Friend Wedding on Digital Medium Format

    Photography Techniques

    1. Photo Technique: Look Up
    2. Street Photography Technique: Overlap
    3. The Fishing Technique in Street Photography
    4. The “Bookend” Technique in Street Photography

    Everyday Photography

    RICOH GR II selfie in mirror, double eye surreal. Prague, 2017
    RICOH GR II selfie in mirror, double eye surreal. Prague, 2017
    1. How to Shoot Better Night Photography
    2. How to Shoot Better Macro Photography
    3. Everyday Photography
    4. 10 Tips How to Take Better Photos of Everyday Life
    5. 15 Tips How to Shoot Better Selfies
    6. 10 Tips How to Take Better Photos of Everyday Life

    Color Photography 101

    Photography Philosophy

    Photography Inspiration

    The Fundamentals of Photography


    Photography Equipment »

    How to Take Better Photos »

    Composition Lessons »

    Photography Assignments »

    Contact Sheets »

    Editing (Image Selection) »

    eric kim laughing lady nyc

    Creativity »

    eric kim Cindy project reflection flash

    Motivation »

    eric kim portrait by Cindy nguyen

    Post-Processing

    dark skies over Tokyo eric kim

    How to Create a Body of Work

    AMERICA - ERIC KIM16 eric kim woman popsicle

    Technical Photography Settings

    eric kim mom glasses


    Learn From the Masters of Photography

    MASTERS PROTOTYPE by HAPTIC

    “He without a past has no future.”

    Start here:

    1. Why Study the Masters of Photography?
    2. Great Female Master Photographers
    3. Cheat Sheet of the Masters of Photography
    4. 100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography
    5. Beginner’s Guide to the Masters of Street Photography
    6. Download All Articles >

    The Masters of Photography

    Prague, 1968. Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos
    Prague, 1968. Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos

    Classics never die:


  • Equipment

    EQUIPMENT by KIM

    There is no “perfect” camera. Don’t fall into GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and falsely believe that buying a new camera will make you a better photographer.

    If you’re not feeling inspired in your photography, I recommend you to buy books, not gear. Also check out these 75+ Inspirational Photo Books You Gotta Buy. You can also download my free books.

    Equipment Articles >

    HENRI NECK STRAP
    1. GOPRO BONES IS THE GAME-CHANGER
    2. ERIC KIM RICOH GR IIIX REVIEW
    3. The Optimal Camera
    4. Material Matter
    5. Just buy it and forget it.
    6. Products will not bring you joy
    7. DARK GEAR.
    8. EVEN THOUGH WE GET THE BEST, WE’RE STILL NOT SATISFIED.
    9. HARDWARE IS THE FUTURE.
    10. iPad Pro over iPhone Pro
    11. Is Leica Overrated?
    12. Fujifilm X-PRO 3 over Leica M10
    13. Equipment Creep
    14. Once You Got Perfect, Then What?
    15. WHY I LOVE RICOH GR III
    16. One-Handed Photography
    17. Why Rangefinders Are Overrated
    18. WHY YOU MUST BUY RICOH GR III
    19. The Best Equipment is The Equipment You Already Have
    20. The Best Camera is the One You Shoot with the Most
    21. Why RICOH GR III is the Best Camera
    22. Use and Abuse Your Gear!
    23. RICOH is the new LEICA
    24. In Praise of Banging around Your Camera
    25. Electric Cameras
    26. Why the RICOH GR III is Better than the Leica Q2
    27. Buy a new Ricoh GR III, not a New iPhone
    28. The Best Headphones are In-Ear Monitors
    29. Are Point-and-Shoot Cameras the Best Cameras?
    30. Gear Adaptation Syndrome
    31. Satisfice
    32. What is the Benefit of “Standalone” Digital Cameras?
    33. All Cameras are Good Cameras
    34. Why The Future of Photography is Software
    35. RICOH MAFIA
    36. Use and Abuse Your Gear!
    37. Why RICOH GR II is the Best Street Photography Camera
    38. The Best Photography/Vlogging Equipment Setup
    39. My Favorite Travel Street Photography Equipment
    40. Zen Body-Hand-Mind Connection with the Camera
    41. Why It Doesn’t Matter What Camera You Shoot With
    42. What is the Best Camera and Lenses for Street Photography?
    43. The Best Travel Street Photography Equipment 2018
    44. 6 Lessons I’ve Learned After Shooting All the Expensive Cameras
    45. How to Make Good Photos on a Shitty Camera
    46. Why I Shoot With One Camera and One Lens
    47. My Travel Equipment, Winter 2017
    48. What is the Perfect Camera For You?
    49. What to Consider When Buying a Camera

    Digital Medium Format Photography

    Smartphone Photography >

    Film Photography 101 >


    My favorite camera: RICOH GR III

    Currently my favorite camera is the RICOH GR III:


    Best Equipment by ERIC KIM

    This is a list of my personal favorite equipment in photography, computers, and life:

    Of course, this list probably won’t apply to you — but this is advice I would give myself (if I needed to buy stuff):


    Film cameras

    If you’re new to shooting film, pick up a copy of FILM NOTES.

    eric kim melbourne benjamin thompson
    Portrait by Benjamin Thompson // Leica MP + Henri Neck Strap + SF 24D flash + Leica 35mm f/2 Summicron ASPH lens

    Best film rangefinder

    Leica MP + Leica 35mm f/2 Summicron Lens

    Best affordable film rangefinder

    Leica M6 + Voigtlander 35mm f/2.5 Lens

    Best compact film camera

    Contax T3

    Best medium-format film camera

    Hasselblad 500-series

    Best black and white film

    Kodak Tri-X 400 (pushed to 1600): $5

    Best color film

    Kodak Portra 400: $8.50

    Best film scanner

    For medium-format/35mm: Epson v800: $800

    For 35mm: Plustek OpticFilm 8100: $270


    Camera accessories

    eric kim street photography gfx fujifilm medium format digital-7340

    Best camera shoulder bag

    SAIGON SATCHEL

    Best camera backpack

    Fits 13” Laptop and Camera: Thinktank Perception 15 (black): $120

    Best photography neck strap

    Best photography wrist strap


    Best photography inspiration website

    MagnumPhotos.com

    Best photography news blog

    PetaPixel.com

    Best photography software

    Adobe Lightroom

    Best video editing software

    iMovie (free) or Final Cut Pro X ($300)


    Books

    See all my free books.

    Best educational photography book

    Magnum Contact Sheets

    Best black-and-white photography art book

    “Exiles” by Josef Koudelka

    Best color photography art book

    “The Suffering of Light” by Alex Webb

    Best photography handbook

    Street Notes

    Best philosophy book

    On the Shortness of Life – Seneca ($8) // 10 Lessons Seneca Has Taught Me.


    Best digital tools

    Best laptop

    Maxed-out 13” MacBook Pro (Refurbished)

    Best phone

    The smallest iPhone available (currently iPhone Mini)


    Best Mac Apps

    Best writing app

    IA Writer (for writing)

    Best screen recorder

    Camtasia

    Best image resizer

    JPEGmini Pro


    Audio

    eric kim hanoi street photography-0012663

    Best earbuds

    In-ear monitors


    Apparel

    Cindy Project Monochrome-3

    Best underwear

    ExOfficio Men Boxer Brief (black): $26

    Best T-shirt

    Outlier NYC Merino Wool T-Shirt

    Best socks

    Outlier NYC Black Merino Wool Socks

    Best pants

    Merino Wool Leggings (black)

    Best glasses

    LINDBERG – Titanium


    Finance

    eric kim street photography x100f fujifilm-7232

    Best bank

    Chase


    Best entrepreneurial tools

    Best blogging platform

    WordPress.org + Genesis theme


    Best paid online services

    eric kim street photography gfx fujifilm medium format digital-7360

    Best cloud storage

    Dropbox (Pro)


    Diet & Nutrition

    Food

    Intermittent fasting — with one big meal a day (only dinner)

    Workout

    Deadlifts (one rep max) + squats + dumbbell press + chin-ups + pushups


    Conclusion

    Of course this is just a list of stuff that work for me. It probably won’t work for you.

    But I got inspired to make this list– because it took me about 10 years to figure out the best equipment for me. And this works for me, and I hope it can help simplify your purchasing decisions (at least in photography and some other details).

    I’ll continue to do articles and videos related to equipment– because I do believe (up to a certain degree) having the ‘right’ equipment in life makes life easier. But the problem is falling victim to GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) where we are buying stuff for the sake of it (has happened to me).

    If you already have a bunch of equipment that works for you– stick with it. But if you need some help, I hope this list helped you.

    Always,
    Eric


  • Life Goals?

    Dear friend, a thought on my mind; perhaps the best way to approach life is to consider our life goals, and also for us to become more critical and discerning on how to achieve those life goals.

    For example, our creative life goals, and also, what we want to achieve in a single day, in a week, or our lifetimes.

    1. Mastering your physiology

    I just hit the legendary 975 pound atlas lift, powered by ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE, and a realization for myself:

    I have a passion and a lust for ever more.

    For example, it seems at least for myself, the direction and path I desire is to always have higher numbers.

    For example, when I consider my younger days when I was 16 years old, and I had my 1991 Sentra SE-R, 5 speed coupe, and the joy that I had was always changing the modifications and things on it, do you ever give it more horsepower, torque, improve performance, etc.

    However, I was never interested in comparing my car with other people. In fact, I had deep pride in my car, and how unique it was. The Sentra SE-R, the B 13, a unique model built from 1991 to 1993, was practically unheard of, even when I was a teenager. Similar to performance to an old-school BMW M3, and superior performance to the Honda Civic SI, which was also very popular when I was a teenager.

    It seems that nowadays, at least in cars and car culture, we are obsessed with having more horsepower, more performance points, etc. It seems that the traditional benchmark in holidays is to have the Tesla model S plaid, 1000+ horsepower etc. I think this is what drives us, both metaphorically and literally, for example the dodge hellcat, SRT, dodge challengers etc., everyone wants to have the mythical 1000+ horsepower. But a funnier life goal and path:

    Maybe a better life goal is instead, to desire to lift 1000 pounds.

    I am fairly certain that I should be able to atlas lift over 1000 pounds, within the next year or two. I find this to be an interesting pursuit, because the only things I require is courage and time. The courage to attempt it, and time.

    Also, focus. I think focus is a critical part of the equation, as the criticality of focus is that before you attempt a certain lift, when you load up over 10 plates on the bar, you gotta focus. You must focus to channel all of your energy, guts, courage, chutzpah into that one single given moment.

    Why? Several things. First and foremost, you must focus and hype yourself up in order to have the courage to even attempt it in the first place.

    Second, you want to be successful. The courage necessary for the attempt is critical, but technically the desired outcome is to be successful. To succeed.

    Truth be told I don’t really care for “failure“, that is not being successful. If I try a given day give it my all, even if I had supreme focus and I was not successful, it doesn’t bother me that much. I’ll just try again in a few days, in a week, and if I have a long enough runway, I know I will eventually be successful.

    2. Time

    The reason why I believe time to be a critical component is at least in the context of weightlifting, if you attempt a one rep max, consistently, at least once a week, every week, let’s say for 10 years straight, certainly you’ll get stronger in the long term.

    Are having a more long-term vision towards the future is a good one. Why?

    I’ll give you an example. This summer me Cindy and Seneca spent about a month and a half in Asia, about two weeks in Hadong South Korea, and about a month in Saigon Vietnam. Because I did not have my typical gym, I noticed that my strength went down a little bit, or at least my technique and familiarity went down a little bit. But ultimately in the long term vision of things, I was not really affected. Actually, within about a week of coming back, or two weeks of coming back, I’ve been able to hit greater personal records than I had before I left to Asia. For example my rack pull, before leaving I was able to do eight plates, 25, five, and a 2.5’er. But a few days ago, I was able to supersede that old personal record, by doing a plate and a 35, 845 pounds. Therefore, even though I was gone from the gym for about a month and a half, I was able to achieve a new personal record that was 5 pounds greater than I was before my trip.

    Also my atlas lift. 970 pounds was my new personal record before my trip, and after my trip, I was a little bit concerned if I lost too much strength and chutzpah. But even though I am still jetlagged, and I am sure that my strength waned a bit, I’ll be able to hit a new personal record of 975 pounds. That is 5 pounds more than it was before!

    Therefore my big suggestion life is this; maybe in terms of vision, it is good to think at the three month, six month, year, 1-3 year, five year, 10 year, 20-30 year spans.

    For example, I remember after I graduated UCLA, and I was living in West LA, and there was a tiny Tesla showroom dealership in the area. This is when Tesla was still just the rebranded lotus car. This is one there was only a Tesla roadster. I think Tesla was already IPO’d public at the time.

    I think the genius of Musk, Jeff Bezos, etc. is that their vision encapsulates very long periods of time.

    For example, SpaceX. Or thinking about colonizing space and mars. Certainly we have to think at the decade, 20 year, 30 year, 40 year time span. To think short periods of time is not useful.

    I think the reason why I enjoyed reading Invent and Wander by Jeff Bezos so much, which is just a collection of his shareholder letters is that it is clear that Jeff Bezos had at least a 30 year vision. For example with Amazon prime, it was seen as pure insanity. Now we just take it as an expected thing. Fortunately for myself, I still see Amazon prime as pure magic and phenomenal. The same thing goes with Uber, etc.

    3. Photo time

    A thought that I’ve been having recently, I love the gym, but in someways, going to the gym eats into my photography time. That is, time it takes me to review my photos, time it takes me to process my photos and upload them, or even time necessary for me to blog, write, send out email newsletters, do more website stuff, backend stuff, building websites, blogs, etc.

    Time is a critical component. But the question is, how do we gain more time?

    Technically you can’t gain more time in a given day, or even a single lifespan. Let us assume that the maximum possible human lifespan is 120 years, but more realistically it might be around 80 to 90 years. I personally aspire to live to 120 years old, but whether I will be successful or not is uncertain. Why? I don’t know if I will die traumatically in a car accident, if I catch some sort of random cancer or a disease, life is always uncertain. Therefore the consequence is in life, we must always be cautious, in terms of our time and our life.

    The first thought I have is it is a good idea to be insanely discerning with your time in your life. That is, do not trade your time or your life for anything else what you do not consider important or critical to you. For example nowadays, the only thing I really care to do is my creative work, spend maximum time with Seneca, etc. Everything else doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

    I think in life, focusing on innovation is a good one. Why? I believe the greatest boon to being American is our ethos of innovation.

    4. Thinking beyond?

    As humans, human beings, what is a good way to think about life in approach life?

    I think a basic notion is to think beyond. Do you think beyond our small little bubble, or small town or city or county or state, or even our nation. It seems much more interesting to focus on the planet, the globe, etc.

    I think one of the best things of traveling internationally is that it widens our perspective and worldview, that is, we can think bigger, more globally and beyond.

    5. Mad max world

    I think it is clear that climate, the world, weather temperature and other things are becoming weirder and weirder. My friend Seth calls this “global weirding”— the general idea is that certainly notions of “climate change“ and “global warming“ is too political and misleading. I think more robust concepts include pollution, and weird weather or climate patterns.

    For example as I write these words, there is big news that this upcoming Monday or Tuesday there will be a massive hurricane in Southern California. I consider this very weird because currently they speak this, the sun is insanely bright and it’s close to 100° degrees Fahrenheit. That’s around 40°C.

    I think currently we’re living in a Mad Max world. What I currently witness is this:

    During the day, it is almost too bright, the sun is too strong to go outside in the direct sun. The only solutions include wearing a baseball cap, a wide brimmed hat, long pants and long sleeves, protect your skin.

    For myself the heat doesn’t really bother me, but certainly if the UV radiation from the sun is too strong, you can’t really go outside.

    I still prefer this insanely hot and bright and scorching sun weather over cold and damp and bone chilling, but still, the climate and the sun is brutal.

    I was talking with some people, why California, why southern California, it seems that other states, the climate is not so good. For example Arizona Utah and Nevada, Las Vegas, Texas, Austin is almost too hot. Certainly the east coast has lots of great options, but for some reason people seem reticent to move to the East Coast.

    Imagine living in the world in which the pollution and the sun and the climate is too unwelcoming outside. Then what do you do, just live in a mall for the rest of your life? Or live indoors for the rest of your life? Not desirable.

    So my general takeaway point is given that climate, outdoors, the world outside everything is shitty, still make the best out of it!

    6. Life philosophy?

    It seems that the things which need to be beefed up is our thinking and our philosophy towards life, being alive, innovation and beyond. This will be the topic that we continue to work on.

    Philosophy by KIM >


    Think better

    The promise of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE — think better.

    Drink better, think better >


    New experiences to uplift you and take you beyond

    If you’re hungry for a new embodied reality experience to take you beyond, some new workshops which might be interesting to you:

    1. Master Street photography in Philly, this upcoming October 14
    2. Discover the creative meaning of your life in downtown LA, this upcoming November 4th

    Some new workshops I’m currently working on include a visual artist workshop, an introduction to stoicism workshop, etc. Stay updated on the workshops page or the newsletter.


    Now what?

    Hugging Face — experiment with AI ART!

    Stable diffusion, introduction

    OPENAI.com


    Never stop thinking

    EK NEWS


    Beefed up and ready to go!

    Check out the new beefed up START HERE page!

    Also,

    BOOKS



  • Life Goals?

    Dear friend, a thought on my mind; perhaps the best way to approach life is to consider our life goals, and also for us to become more critical and discerning on how to achieve those life goals.

    For example, our creative life goals, and also, what we want to achieve in a single day, in a week, or our lifetimes.

    1. Mastering your physiology

    I just hit the legendary 975 pound atlas lift, powered by ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE, and a realization for myself:

    I have a passion and a lust for ever more.

    For example, it seems at least for myself, the direction and path I desire is to always have higher numbers.

    For example, when I consider my younger days when I was 16 years old, and I had my 1991 Sentra SE-R, 5 speed coupe, and the joy that I had was always changing the modifications and things on it, do you ever give it more horsepower, torque, improve performance, etc.

    However, I was never interested in comparing my car with other people. In fact, I had deep pride in my car, and how unique it was. The Sentra SE-R, the B 13, a unique model built from 1991 to 1993, was practically unheard of, even when I was a teenager. Similar to performance to an old-school BMW M3, and superior performance to the Honda Civic SI, which was also very popular when I was a teenager.

    It seems that nowadays, at least in cars and car culture, we are obsessed with having more horsepower, more performance points, etc. It seems that the traditional benchmark in holidays is to have the Tesla model S plaid, 1000+ horsepower etc. I think this is what drives us, both metaphorically and literally, for example the dodge hellcat, SRT, dodge challengers etc., everyone wants to have the mythical 1000+ horsepower. But a funnier life goal and path:

    Maybe a better life goal is instead, to desire to lift 1000 pounds.

    I am fairly certain that I should be able to atlas lift over 1000 pounds, within the next year or two. I find this to be an interesting pursuit, because the only things I require is courage and time. The courage to attempt it, and time.

    Also, focus. I think focus is a critical part of the equation, as the criticality of focus is that before you attempt a certain lift, when you load up over 10 plates on the bar, you gotta focus. You must focus to channel all of your energy, guts, courage, chutzpah into that one single given moment.

    Why? Several things. First and foremost, you must focus and hype yourself up in order to have the courage to even attempt it in the first place.

    Second, you want to be successful. The courage necessary for the attempt is critical, but technically the desired outcome is to be successful. To succeed.

    Truth be told I don’t really care for “failure“, that is not being successful. If I try a given day give it my all, even if I had supreme focus and I was not successful, it doesn’t bother me that much. I’ll just try again in a few days, in a week, and if I have a long enough runway, I know I will eventually be successful.

    2. Time

    The reason why I believe time to be a critical component is at least in the context of weightlifting, if you attempt a one rep max, consistently, at least once a week, every week, let’s say for 10 years straight, certainly you’ll get stronger in the long term.

    Are having a more long-term vision towards the future is a good one. Why?

    I’ll give you an example. This summer me Cindy and Seneca spent about a month and a half in Asia, about two weeks in Hadong South Korea, and about a month in Saigon Vietnam. Because I did not have my typical gym, I noticed that my strength went down a little bit, or at least my technique and familiarity went down a little bit. But ultimately in the long term vision of things, I was not really affected. Actually, within about a week of coming back, or two weeks of coming back, I’ve been able to hit greater personal records than I had before I left to Asia. For example my rack pull, before leaving I was able to do eight plates, 25, five, and a 2.5’er. But a few days ago, I was able to supersede that old personal record, by doing a plate and a 35, 845 pounds. Therefore, even though I was gone from the gym for about a month and a half, I was able to achieve a new personal record that was 5 pounds greater than I was before my trip.

    Also my atlas lift. 970 pounds was my new personal record before my trip, and after my trip, I was a little bit concerned if I lost too much strength and chutzpah. But even though I am still jetlagged, and I am sure that my strength waned a bit, I’ll be able to hit a new personal record of 975 pounds. That is 5 pounds more than it was before!

    Therefore my big suggestion life is this; maybe in terms of vision, it is good to think at the three month, six month, year, 1-3 year, five year, 10 year, 20-30 year spans.

    For example, I remember after I graduated UCLA, and I was living in West LA, and there was a tiny Tesla showroom dealership in the area. This is when Tesla was still just the rebranded lotus car. This is one there was only a Tesla roadster. I think Tesla was already IPO’d public at the time.

    I think the genius of Musk, Jeff Bezos, etc. is that their vision encapsulates very long periods of time.

    For example, SpaceX. Or thinking about colonizing space and mars. Certainly we have to think at the decade, 20 year, 30 year, 40 year time span. To think short periods of time is not useful.

    I think the reason why I enjoyed reading Invent and Wander by Jeff Bezos so much, which is just a collection of his shareholder letters is that it is clear that Jeff Bezos had at least a 30 year vision. For example with Amazon prime, it was seen as pure insanity. Now we just take it as an expected thing. Fortunately for myself, I still see Amazon prime as pure magic and phenomenal. The same thing goes with Uber, etc.

    3. Photo time

    A thought that I’ve been having recently, I love the gym, but in someways, going to the gym eats into my photography time. That is, time it takes me to review my photos, time it takes me to process my photos and upload them, or even time necessary for me to blog, write, send out email newsletters, do more website stuff, backend stuff, building websites, blogs, etc.

    Time is a critical component. But the question is, how do we gain more time?

    Technically you can’t gain more time in a given day, or even a single lifespan. Let us assume that the maximum possible human lifespan is 120 years, but more realistically it might be around 80 to 90 years. I personally aspire to live to 120 years old, but whether I will be successful or not is uncertain. Why? I don’t know if I will die traumatically in a car accident, if I catch some sort of random cancer or a disease, life is always uncertain. Therefore the consequence is in life, we must always be cautious, in terms of our time and our life.

    The first thought I have is it is a good idea to be insanely discerning with your time in your life. That is, do not trade your time or your life for anything else what you do not consider important or critical to you. For example nowadays, the only thing I really care to do is my creative work, spend maximum time with Seneca, etc. Everything else doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

    I think in life, focusing on innovation is a good one. Why? I believe the greatest boon to being American is our ethos of innovation.

    4. Thinking beyond?

    As humans, human beings, what is a good way to think about life in approach life?

    I think a basic notion is to think beyond. Do you think beyond our small little bubble, or small town or city or county or state, or even our nation. It seems much more interesting to focus on the planet, the globe, etc.

    I think one of the best things of traveling internationally is that it widens our perspective and worldview, that is, we can think bigger, more globally and beyond.

    5. Mad max world

    I think it is clear that climate, the world, weather temperature and other things are becoming weirder and weirder. My friend Seth calls this “global weirding”— the general idea is that certainly notions of “climate change“ and “global warming“ is too political and misleading. I think more robust concepts include pollution, and weird weather or climate patterns.

    For example as I write these words, there is big news that this upcoming Monday or Tuesday there will be a massive hurricane in Southern California. I consider this very weird because currently they speak this, the sun is insanely bright and it’s close to 100° degrees Fahrenheit. That’s around 40°C.

    I think currently we’re living in a Mad Max world. What I currently witness is this:

    During the day, it is almost too bright, the sun is too strong to go outside in the direct sun. The only solutions include wearing a baseball cap, a wide brimmed hat, long pants and long sleeves, protect your skin.

    For myself the heat doesn’t really bother me, but certainly if the UV radiation from the sun is too strong, you can’t really go outside.

    I still prefer this insanely hot and bright and scorching sun weather over cold and damp and bone chilling, but still, the climate and the sun is brutal.

    I was talking with some people, why California, why southern California, it seems that other states, the climate is not so good. For example Arizona Utah and Nevada, Las Vegas, Texas, Austin is almost too hot. Certainly the east coast has lots of great options, but for some reason people seem reticent to move to the East Coast.

    Imagine living in the world in which the pollution and the sun and the climate is too unwelcoming outside. Then what do you do, just live in a mall for the rest of your life? Or live indoors for the rest of your life? Not desirable.

    So my general takeaway point is given that climate, outdoors, the world outside everything is shitty, still make the best out of it!

    6. Life philosophy?

    It seems that the things which need to be beefed up is our thinking and our philosophy towards life, being alive, innovation and beyond. This will be the topic that we continue to work on.

    Philosophy by KIM >


    Think better

    The promise of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE — think better.

    Drink better, think better >


    New experiences to uplift you and take you beyond

    If you’re hungry for a new embodied reality experience to take you beyond, some new workshops which might be interesting to you:

    1. Master Street photography in Philly, this upcoming October 14
    2. Discover the creative meaning of your life in downtown LA, this upcoming November 4th

    Some new workshops I’m currently working on include a visual artist workshop, an introduction to stoicism workshop, etc. Stay updated on the workshops page or the newsletter.


    Now what?

    Hugging Face — experiment with AI ART!

    Stable diffusion, introduction

    OPENAI.com



  • SoCal Photos


  • PRIME VISION

    WHAT IS YOUR PRIME VISION IN LIFE?


    LASER FOCUS.

    HYPED UP on ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE— I’m currently drinking the black bag, THE PHOTOGRAPHER, which is 50% fine robusta and 50% liberica. This stuff is seriously liquid gold, gives me more focus, hype, and general good attitude toward life.

    Anyways, I thought on my mind is in regards to focus, laser focus. Some thoughts on focus:

    How to focus?

    The philosophy of focus is tricky; on one hand, in modern-day times it is seen as virtuous to focus. To “not get distracted“.

    I know for myself, I am easily distracted by superfluous things. Therefore it is my personal passion to not be distracted.

    The first question you must ask yourself is this:

    Do I want to focus?

    For example, Nassim Taleb writes that contrary to popular wisdom, by him not focusing on a single given subject, he was able to advance his thinking and philosophy.

    On the other hand, innovators like Steve Jobs gave advice to Sergey and Larry Page about how focus was critical.

    For example, the advice that Steve Jobs gave to Larry Page and Sergey Brin was how Google should just focus on search, their most critical component, and not get distracted by other things like android, etc.

    Looking at things a little bit zoomed out, I think Steve Jobs may have been correct. When we look at Android, it is a very sad and poor imitation of Apple and iOS. If Android was never invented, I don’t really think that the world would suffer.

    In fact, thinking about things more critically, upon much consideration and thinking, and also personal use of android and android products, essentially it’s Google’s sneaky way of injecting more advertisements into your life. The decade+ plan of android and Google Maps is quite simple; gather more personal preferences of users and user behavior in order to deliver more “relevant“ advertisements.


    Your life

    There is certainly a difference between your life, and the life of these corporations. The reason why I think corporations are not a good example is that ultimately, the strategies don’t really pertain much to the individual. It seems more effective to focus on your own personal life and thriving, rather than just look at what companies are doing.

    The philosophy of living and life

    To think deeply, ultimately what you want to think and consider is that you only have one life, this one given life. So the question is in this life, what do you desire to achieve, attempt, or do? Do you care for your legacy? Do you care for the thriving of other future human beings beyond you? Do you not care? Underlying all of these considerations is a certain life philosophy. And I think that is guiding principles are critical.

    In terms of my personal legacy, what I want to leave behind, how I wish to contribute to society, the general thought is I want to help assist empowering other individuals. For example, I just think of my 12-year-old, 15-year-old, 16-year-old, 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 21 year old, 26 year old self, and I think and consider; I thought given point in my life in that age, what advice and wisdom do I wish that other people shared with me?


    No external media?

    In terms of laser focus, another strategy and path is no external media, beyond yourself, the vibrations of your own mind, and other embodied reality experiences you have in person with other human beings.

    For example, one of the best things that I’ve personally done is go to the hot sauna every single day, religiously. Why? I consider it like my meditation zen focus, chamber, in which I come up with lots of great creative ideas.

    There are also some theories that perhaps being in a really really hot sauna, in which the heat and humidity is much higher, which forces your body to sweat, might be positively good for you in terms of your hormones. Hot heat therapy in the hot sauna at the gym, or even doing hot yoga, a form of hormesis.


    Why movies or media?

    There are always great new movies coming out, great new TV shows, series, etc. But I think out of all of this, the ultimate goal is towards human thriving, some sort of strengthening, or challenges.

    A simple thought:

    The time you spend watching media movies or shows, just use that time to go to the gym instead.

    For example, I love superhero movies. I love the Marvel movies, the superhero movies, mostly the ones that came out before Disney bought out Marvel. I personally love the hero struggle, the hero narrative, etc. Why? I see myself in their shoes; when I watch a superhero movie, it makes me think that I’m the superhero.

    What does a superhero have to deal with? In America, which has Judeo Christian, Protestant, Jesus sacrifice mentality, the general thought is that a hero sacrifices his life for the collective. That is, let us consider all of these heroic movies and films, typically the lead sacrifices his or her life in order to save humanity, people beyond them, etc.

    The tricky thing is when we go further back in history, let’s say studying the Iliad, the Odyssey, etc., the narrative is a bit different. For example, let us consider Achilles in the Iliad. He is not sacrificing anything for the collective. Instead, his initial plan was just to go back to his own land, ideally take Breisis with him, stop war campaigning, and just retire and chill out. However it was the death of his best friend Patroclus which drove him to seek revenge. I wonder if John Wick is almost like the modern-day Achilles; some sort of antihero that we are actually rooting for.


    Your goals?

    Once again, the tricky thing is that for you, what are your personal goals, or life mission?

    Discovering your creative mission

    Another critical thing is discovering your creative mission in life. That is, assuming you were a trillionaire, what would you do with your time life and physiological energy?

    My general thought is that everyone is unique, and has a diverse range of skill sets they could use to leverage and move the world.

    For example, let us say that you’re into cars, photography, and innovation. I think there is an interesting way you can cross pollinate all of these interests.

    Or for myself, my passion for photography and coffee. Creating the first photographers blend, the first coffee optimized to help stimulate and motivate photographers.

    The traditional wisdom is everyone tells you to stay focused on a single small niche. Based on my life experiences, and thinking more long-term, I don’t think this is the way. Much more effective instead of taking insanely long term.

    That is, allow yourself to indulge all of your creative interests.

    Focus and diversity

    A simple thought is when you are investigating and pursuing all of your diverse interests, just be insanely focused on each one at a time. No need to justify yourself. In the long run, all of these things will dovetail nicely.


    Now what?

    Focus on your health, your physicality, and don’t sacrifice your health for anything. Also focus on the health of your wife, your kids, and certainly yourself.

    Assuming you want to become more productive in life, the simple path is focusing on your health. If you are insanely healthy, productivity will come naturally.


    White space

    Another thought on my mind in regards to design, as well as a mental thing; how white space is critical.

    What is white space? Simply put, white space is having buffer, not overloading yourself or your schedule, even for the promise of making more money.

    If you’re confronted with the question; should I take on this additional work to make extra money, or should I choose to refuse it in order to maximize my mind space and mental white space, choose your mental white space.

    The philosophy of making money

    Another thought I had this morning is in regards to money. How to make money, why make money, how much money should we make.

    I think the upside of being self-employed, an entrepreneur, is that in some regards, you have some control over this.

    Social life is the best stimulus

    Another thought; a simple thought I have is that perhaps the best stimulus is other people. That means, being at the gym, being at the park, being at the mall, any opportunity to be around other human beings is good for us.

    Why is the modern day man so antisocial?

    My theory is that because it is almost seen as a new ethic; to intrude upon other people is considered bad.

    For example, when you interact with other human beings, sooner or later you will offend somebody. And this is all part of the game.

    This is my theory:

    Better to risk a social interaction, be friendly and say hi, and be given the cold shoulder or a bad interaction, rather than not attempt it at all.

    I think this might be the cure and panacea for modern day living.


    STREET PHOTOGRAPHY X STOICISM

    A great crossover that I personally think about the difference of stoicism, and modern day life, is that stoicism must be practiced, almost like a martial arts.

    Typically speaking, our use of stoicism, ethics, modern day ethics, etc. is predicated on opportunities.

    For example, other people. If you’re at home all day, don’t have to expose yourself to any real life interactions with other people, you have no need for stoicism.

    Also, the Internet is fake. Nowadays with ChatGPT, it is really impossible to know whether the online commentator, troll, Twitter account, etc., is a real human being or not. Therefore my suggestion is to just disable all comments on the Internet, don’t read any comments on the Internet, And only rely on face-to-face interactions.


    Demigod focus

    I personally believe that one of the best ways to focus is that there needs to be some Mokadem of danger, that is, there needs to be some sort of downside risk, some sort of risk of life or death.

    For example, my 10 plate challenge. The general gist is easy;

    Put a barbell on the squat rack, and load it up with 10 plates. Then see if you can successfully lift it up, a little bit off the bar even half a centimeter, once, for even half a second.

    It doesn’t really matter whether you are able to successfully lift it or not, what is most important and critical is the attempt, your focus, your courage.

    The reason why I find this to be so essential is that before attempting to do this, the courage necessary is phenomenal. There is really no other time in which I truly am afforded the opportunity to focus that much.

    I think the reason why this gives me such zen and intense focus opportunity is that if I don’t focus, and give it my 100% effort, who knows, maybe there is a risk of injury? Funny enough though, with the atlas lift, I’ve suffered zero injuries. At worst I cannot budge the bar. But my desire is to move the bar, so regardless, my focus is to get into a zen mode, to tune out all distractions, channel 100% of my strength and courage into that one single moment, and lift the weight with all my might.


    Adrenaline training

    I have a theory about focus; it has to do with adrenaline. That is, people often think that adrenaline, fear is a bad thing, but even the notion of “fear“ is misguided. Maybe fear is nothing but adrenaline in overdrive, which is untamed.

    I often think about the movie 300, the moment in which king Leonidas and his heroic 300 are preparing to go to battle with king Xerxes and the millions of Persian missionaries. What happens is this— the narrator says something like,

    He felt no fear. Simply a heightened sense of things.

    Very very interesting, I think I may feel the same sentiment. When I am ready to hype myself up for a godly lift, it isn’t necessarily fear which I feel, rather, a heightened sense of things.

    Also interestingly enough, wondering and while doing the lift itself, and the barbell is on my shoulders, my hearing goes deaf. For about a few seconds, I literally cannot hear the music, but the second I put down the barbell, the music turns back on.

    Therefore, once again, the interesting thought is that perhaps, adrenaline training is what we need. And this is the focus of my workshops; to help you tame your adrenaline, to train your adrenaline, and for you to learn to turn “fear” and your adrenaline into your slave, your own pet monster, to unleash it when you deem it necessary.

    Focus for the sake of what?

    I think the difficult and tricky thing is that in modern day times, notions of “focus“ are deemed as some sort of pseudo-virtuous thing in which becoming “focused” is towards money and capital accumulation. That is, the purpose of focusing, being “productive“, is in order to make money, accumulate and accrue more capital, etc.

    Call but what if focusing, your own personal desire to focus isn’t for any of these things? Then what?

    How to see and look further

    Elon Musk vision goals; essentially to see and think beyond.

    My simple thought is in regards to your life goals, be laser vision focused on what you consider truly critical, your life mission while you are still on planet earth.

    For example, one of my current life goals is propagating fine robusta to the masses. Also I got lots of goals with diet health and fitness, and certainly photography, street photography courage, philosophy stoicism and everything in between.

    Also with my workshops, honestly at this point I’m starting to think that I just want to do it because I care, and I have a lot of insane fun doing it! In my mind I see myself as a bitcoin billionaire. Therefore, at this point I almost see things like making money as a hobby.

    Prime Vision

    To have a prime vision, a primary vision. To find yourself, your entrepreneurial ventures, etc.

    It seems that in modern day times, we are always seeking funding, some sort of external externalized funding. But perhaps, this isn’t a good path. Why? If you want someone else to find you, external funding, maybe the thing that you’re doing isn’t really worth doing. That is, true genius is shown through what you are willing to sacrifice, out of your own pocket etc.

    For example, I think a lot of people want external funding in terms of traveling, expenses, building something etc. however, while traveling is great, perhaps a lot of trouble is more romanticized than anything.

    My thought instead is fund yourself. True skin in the game.

    Now what?

    Some thought and philosophy assignments for you:

    First, the philosophy of money. For you, what is the meaning of finances? Why does it matter to you, and also what does it mean to you?

    Second, think about your health. How would you define health for yourself, and also why does it matter to you?

    Third, think about your own creativity, your own creative life. What is it that you desire to create as an artist, and towards what ends, why, and also how to best propagate it?

    To think these thoughts deeper, have a chat with ERIC KIM AI.


    CONQUER WITH EK

    If you’re hungry and ready to conquer, conquer with me:

    1. Conquer street photography in Philly, this upcoming October 14, 2023
    2. Discover your creative mission in life, my brand new workshop in downtown LA later on this year November 4, 2023 – ALL NEW!
    3. Achieve peak creativity in Seattle, next year February 10, 2024

    Some new workshops in the making:

    1. Introduction to stoicism workshop, later on this year in downtown LA
    2. Street photography master workshop
    3. Next year, Seoul/Hadong South Korea workshop 2024

    Always stay tuned to the ERIC KIM workshops page, or this newsletter.

    Now what?

    Pursuing your own passion for photography is still a noble goal.

    Keep shooting, keep making art, and upload your best photos to ARS BETA >


    Random thoughts on my mind

    Prime, primer thoughts. Perhaps the best color or the paint concept is primer flat gray. Why? The promise of infinite opportunities, anything is possible.


    Morning Routine

    Just vlog your morning routine! And drink more EK COFFEE!


    Forward the turbo

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

    ERIC


    And when lost,

    START HERE



  • LASER FOCUS

    HYPED UP on ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE— I’m currently drinking the black bag, THE PHOTOGRAPHER, which is 50% fine robusta and 50% liberica.

    Some thoughts on focus:

    How to focus?

    The philosophy of focus is tricky; on one hand, in modern-day times it is seen as virtuous to focus. To “not get distracted“.

    I know for myself, I am easily distracted by superfluous things. Therefore it is my personal passion to not be distracted.

    The first question you must ask yourself is this:

    Do I want to focus?

    For example, Nassim Taleb writes that contrary to popular wisdom, by him not focusing on a single given subject, he was able to advance his thinking and philosophy.

    On the other hand, innovators like Steve Jobs gave advice to Sergey and Larry Page about how focus was critical.

    For example, the advice that Steve Jobs gave to Larry Page and Sergey Brin was how Google should just focus on search, their most critical component, and not get distracted by other things like android, etc.

    Looking at things a little bit zoomed out, I think Steve Jobs may have been correct. When we look at Android, it is a very sad and poor imitation of Apple and iOS. If Android was never invented, I don’t really think that the world would suffer.

    In fact, thinking about things more critically, upon much consideration and thinking, and also personal use of android and android products, essentially it’s Google’s sneaky way of injecting more advertisements into your life. The decade+ plan of android and Google Maps is quite simple; gather more personal preferences of users and user behavior in order to deliver more “relevant“ advertisements.


    Your life

    There is certainly a difference between your life, and the life of these corporations. The reason why I think corporations are not a good example is that ultimately, the strategies don’t really pertain much to the individual. It seems more effective to focus on your own personal life and thriving, rather than just look at what companies are doing.

    The philosophy of living and life

    To think deeply, ultimately what you want to think and consider is that you only have one life, this one given life. So the question is in this life, what do you desire to achieve, attempt, or do? Do you care for your legacy? Do you care for the thriving of other future human beings beyond you? Do you not care? Underlying all of these considerations is a certain life philosophy. And I think that is guiding principles are critical.

    In terms of my personal legacy, what I want to leave behind, how I wish to contribute to society, the general thought is I want to help assist empowering other individuals. For example, I just think of my 12-year-old, 15-year-old, 16-year-old, 18-year-old, 19-year-old, 21 year old, 26 year old self, and I think and consider; I thought given point in my life in that age, what advice and wisdom do I wish that other people shared with me?


    No external media?

    In terms of laser focus, another strategy and path is no external media, beyond yourself, the vibrations of your own mind, and other embodied reality experiences you have in person with other human beings.

    For example, one of the best things that I’ve personally done is go to the hot sauna every single day, religiously. Why? I consider it like my meditation zen focus, chamber, in which I come up with lots of great creative ideas.

    There are also some theories that perhaps being in a really really hot sauna, in which the heat and humidity is much higher, which forces your body to sweat, might be positively good for you in terms of your hormones. Hot heat therapy in the hot sauna at the gym, or even doing hot yoga, a form of hormesis.


    Why movies or media?

    There are always great new movies coming out, great new TV shows, series, etc. But I think out of all of this, the ultimate goal is towards human thriving, some sort of strengthening, or challenges.

    A simple thought:

    The time you spend watching media movies or shows, just use that time to go to the gym instead.

    For example, I love superhero movies. I love the Marvel movies, the superhero movies, mostly the ones that came out before Disney bought out Marvel. I personally love the hero struggle, the hero narrative, etc. Why? I see myself in their shoes; when I watch a superhero movie, it makes me think that I’m the superhero.

    What does a superhero have to deal with? In America, which has Judeo Christian, Protestant, Jesus sacrifice mentality, the general thought is that a hero sacrifices his life for the collective. That is, let us consider all of these heroic movies and films, typically the lead sacrifices his or her life in order to save humanity, people beyond them, etc.

    The tricky thing is when we go further back in history, let’s say studying the Iliad, the Odyssey, etc., the narrative is a bit different. For example, let us consider Achilles in the Iliad. He is not sacrificing anything for the collective. Instead, his initial plan was just to go back to his own land, ideally take Breisis with him, stop war campaigning, and just retire and chill out. However it was the death of his best friend Patroclus which drove him to seek revenge. I wonder if John Wick is almost like the modern-day Achilles; some sort of antihero that we are actually rooting for.


    Your goals?

    Once again, the tricky thing is that for you, what are your personal goals, or life mission?

    Discovering your creative mission

    Another critical thing is discovering your creative mission in life. That is, assuming you were a trillionaire, what would you do with your time life and physiological energy?

    My general thought is that everyone is unique, and has a diverse range of skill sets they could use to leverage and move the world.

    For example, let us say that you’re into cars, photography, and innovation. I think there is an interesting way you can cross pollinate all of these interests.

    Or for myself, my passion for photography and coffee. Creating the first photographers blend, the first coffee optimized to help stimulate and motivate photographers.

    The traditional wisdom is everyone tells you to stay focused on a single small niche. Based on my life experiences, and thinking more long-term, I don’t think this is the way. Much more effective instead of taking insanely long term.

    That is, allow yourself to indulge all of your creative interests.

    Focus and diversity

    A simple thought is when you are investigating and pursuing all of your diverse interests, just be insanely focused on each one at a time. No need to justify yourself. In the long run, all of these things will dovetail nicely.


    Now what?

    Focus on your health, your physicality, and don’t sacrifice your health for anything. Also focus on the health of your wife, your kids, and certainly yourself.

    Assuming you want to become more productive in life, the simple path is focusing on your health. If you are insanely healthy, productivity will come naturally.


  • Man on a Mission Picks


  • Pure Vision


  • Commuting Thoughts

    LA THOUGHTS

    The other day, woke up pretty early, got some good writing done (Man on a Mission), was feeling high strength, and decided that it may be a good opportunity and chance for me to go househunting and apartment hunting in LA with Cindy. We loaded up our car, and drove down to LA, spent the whole day there and came back, and after the whole day there coming back, this was the most fatigued I felt in a very long time.

    Thoughts on my mind:

    Why was I so tired? Is it still the jet lag, or is it the fact of being stuck in the car all day, or driving all day?


    Commuting?

    Commute — to change, alter (con muto).

    meytH— to change, to exchange, to move.

    What does it mean to commute, what is a commute?

    I suppose after studying the etymology, to commute means to simply exchange places. For example, typically you sleep in your home, wake up, and then you commute to work, whether it be walking driving etc.

    In modern day times, or if you live in LA or southern California, the notion of a commute is generally speaking being stuck in traffic or being stuck in a car or being stuck driving for several hours a day.

    For example, in my case, starting off in Orange County and driving to LA, even with Cindy and carpool, it still took us about an hour and five minutes to get to LA. And the tricky thing about driving to LA especially coming from Orange County is that the closer you get to LA, the more ratchet it gets. People drive more aggressively, the freeways become more condensed, interchanges become a little bit more unpredictable and confusing.

    Concrete Islands

    I call it “concrete archipelago hopping” to quote my friend Evyn Le Espiritu.

    Basically the issue in LA, and a lot of southern California is that all of these different neighborhoods are like concrete islands, which instead of being separated by water is separated by traffic.

    For example, Cindy and I toured several neighborhoods which included Marina del Rey, some outskirts of Santa Monica, Culver City, Westwood, etc. Even though they are all in close proximity to UCLA, during rush hour, trying to go from the east side to the west side is all local and you’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

    Would a Tesla solve this issue?

    Another thing that I’ve learned which is intelligent in Asia, Southeast Asia, is that rich people don’t drive themselves; either have private drivers, or just ride grab taxi or an Uber anywhere. In Asia, only servants drive.

    In America we have this funny strange thing in which we want to be the driver. We want to be the man at the helm, the cockpit, inside the fuselage.

    Even the notion of a modern-day sports car or a hyper car, I think the general analogy is that it is almost like having your own private jet fighter. I think this is what Lamborghini is going for, you may not be able to buy a jet fighter, and be like Tom Cruise, but, you can have your own land based jet fighter which is a modern day Lamborghini.

    However, even if you have the worlds best Lamborghini or car or hyper car whatever, during peak rush-hour in LA, you’re stuck. I don’t know anybody who likes to drive during bumper-to-bumper rush-hour.

    The curiosity on my mind is this:

    If I had a Tesla, either with basic auto pilot, the one which does the “smart cruise control“ on the freeway, auto staying in the lane and keeping distance in front of the other car, or even full auto pilot, would this solve the issue?

    For example, let me assume that in the morning, before leaving to LA at 10 AM, I was at 100% energy, honestly I think it would have just been better for me to go to the gym and try to hit over 10 plates for my atlas lift. After driving commuting going to LA coming back, I felt like my battery went down to a critical low of 2%.

    Thus my curiosity:

    If I had a Tesla, either with basic auto pilot or full auto pilot, would having to commute and drive deplete me of less energy?

    For example, if I had auto pilot, would my energy levels still be at close to 100%? At 90%? At 80%? At 60%? 50%? 40%? 30%? Or about the same?

    I know that when I’m stuck in traffic, but someone else is driving me, like during peak rush-hour in Saigon, it didn’t really bother me too much to be stuck in traffic. I just used that time to review my photos on my iPhone, or even publish some ideas to my blog, using my iPhone.

    Jet lag?

    Was I so tired yesterday because I was still jetlagged? Still a little bit uncertain, but the general takeaway point:

    Conserve your energy and strength.

    I think some certainties:

    1. Driving drains your battery

    Having to actively drive yourself saps you of your strength and energy: for example, typically I am able to easily atlas lift over nine plates at the gym, but yesterday after driving all day, and hitting the gym, I was so fatigued that I barely had energy and chutzpah to do seven plates. Being cognizant of my body, I still had the muscular strength to lift more, but, my overall feeling and just was I didn’t have the chutzpah to do it. Therefore purely speaking from a productivity energy perspective, if you want to maximize your energy, and to minimally deplete your energy, drive as little as humanly possible.

    Chutzpah vlog >

    I like this analogy of thinking of your human energy like a battery or a smart phone battery. That is, when you wake up first thing in the morning, and during the day, you got 100% battery life, but as the day goes on, your battery life gets drained. Things you could do to recharge your battery include drinking more ERIC KIM COFFEE, taking a nap, or sleeping. Sometimes also good way to recharge your battery is ironically hitting the gym, lifting weights, doing the hot sauna, or even going out in the direct sun, catching some sun.

    2. I don’t like tint

    For the 2010 Prius that we recently inherited, it has pretty much full tint. Close to limo tint in the back and the back windshield, the front is quite dark, and I think there’s even a little bit of tint on the front windshield.

    For myself, I get maximum physiological energy when I am in the direct sun, or I have the privilege and opportunity to get more direct light. Therefore, I don’t like tint or tint in cars because it makes things darker, and I feel like this saps me of some of my energy. Maximum sunlight and brightness is key for me to maximize my physical energy.

    Therefore being stuck in the car all day, the downside is it because you are stuck in the car all day with tint, you have less energy and power.

    3. Gravity on your legs and joints

    Another big downside of being stuck in a car, or being seated in either the front seat or the backseat of a car is that when you are in a sitting position, and gravity doesn’t have an opportunity to work on your legs. I have a theory that when you do not have the privilege to stand, walk, or have the opportunity for gravity to work on your legs, your lower body, your back, your spine, your hips, your knees, your ligaments and joints etc., Your metabolism and physiological energy shuts down.

    Therefore, even if you had a 100% private driver, or even the $15,000 self 100% self driving tesla, still being forced to be in a seated position is positively bad for you.

    Lesson: optimize your life such a manner in which you are never sitting.

    4. How to watch a movie, or TV show series?

    One of the things I hate about flying is that you are forced to sit the whole time. Whenever possible, Seneca included, I prefer to stand, kill time by walking around the cabin, etc.

    Was it Virgin Airlines, or some sort of other airlines which had some sort of club lounge in which you were able to stand and hang out? I think this is a really good idea for airplanes.

    Anyways, another simple thought I have is if there is a TV show, a series, or a movie you want to watch, it seems that the best idea is to watch it while standing, while walking outdoors, just download it to your iPad Pro, and walk around while watching it outside. This is far superior of a watching experience; I believe the greatest benefit of movies films and cinema is that motivates you to move, literally. Any sort of movie or action film which inspires you to move your legs walk around, is good.

    For example, when I first watched the Foundation series on Apple TV+, I would just download it all to my iPhone or iPad Pro, and watch it while walking around the block with an umbrella during the summertime in the blazing Southern California sun.

    Therefore as a fun experiment, avoid sitting.

    5. Anti inferior coffee?

    During our house and Tim trip in LA, Cindy and I briefly stopped by a Trader Joe’s and Cindy picked up some snacks and one of those cold brew Trader Joe’s coffees. Apparently 100% arabica. However, the coffee was insanely terrible. Immediately I felt my throat act up, and actually gave me a bad feeling. I actually felt more tired than I did before having it.

    Therefore, my personal passion with ERIC KIM Coffee, to truly bring you the most superior and supreme coffee to help you thrive.

    What makes ERIC KIM COFFEE different? 100% fine robusta, the most healthy coffee and the most supreme for your physiology.

    My personal commitment to myself; I will only ever drink EK COFFEE ever again.

    6. Trading your health, your well-being, and your physiological energy for money?

    Assuming that driving and sitting as positively bad for you and your health, let us consider how most people make their money and living, nowadays taxi drivers and Uber drivers, Amazon prime delivery people, or the traditional office worker who sits in front of a computer and sits on a chair at a desk all day.

    Even the traditional Silicon Valley worker with standing desk isn’t much better. I think there’s something positively bad about your health when we are forced to stay indoors, not moving, and just staring at a screen all day.

    Therefore the traditional way that a lot of people make money nowadays is simply trading their health for money. Also, having to fly internationally or even domestically for a living is positively bad for your health.


    7. Voluntary versus involuntary commuting

    I think having a small commute is positively good. To drive 15 or 20 minutes somewhere is often good to just get out of the house, change of scenery etc.

    Also to drive a little bit a day I think is also good for us.

    But the dosage is in the poison. this means, maybe driving 15 minutes somewhere and then driving 15 minutes back is good for us, but having to drive an hour or an hour and 30 minutes somewhere and two hours back is really bad for us.

    Therefore my suggestion is in regards to your life and lifestyle, work etc., I don’t think we should ever be forced to commute anywhere, we should only commute optionally if we want to.


  • Man on a Mission

    To sell ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE and to propagate fine robusta to the states and to the world; my mission?

    Being a missionary?

    An interesting thought that I got from Peter Thiel in his ZERO TO ONE book is the notion of a missionary versus a mercenary. The difference is that a missionary does something because they really believe in the mission, whereas a mercenary does something for money, merx, which means market.

    Now there is nothing wrong to do things for money. Or to follow market trends or to do things which makes sense according to the market. For example, if I want to maximize my earning potential or salary, it is probably best that I become some sort of tech manager, some sort of upper management at one of the big tech companies. This is probably the best part to earn a $550,000 a year, $750,000 a year, $1.2 million a year, $2.5 million a year, etc.

    Or more directly, if you want to immediately start earning a bunch of money, it seems that the best industries to go are in the blue collar ones which are considered either unhygienic or dangerous. For example electricians make a lot of money, easily over $350,000 a year. Why? People are afraid of heights, climbing electricity poles, and also the fear that they may accidentally touch the wrong wire and electrocute themselves and die.

    Or, let us consider a very very important part of modern day society which is sanitation and hygiene. People who pick up your trash, sort it, or even plumbers who drain stuck pipes. If anything people who do hygiene might have the most critical jobs in modern-day society, and their income reflects it. They can easily earn over $500,000 a year. But, do you really want to clean other peoples poop for a living? Or smell like trash all day, every day, even after you go home, take a shower and put on a bunch of cologne? I personally wouldn’t.

    Why become a missionary?

    Typically when we think about missionaries we think about religious missionaries. Or people who go on “missions“ in high school or college, typically to some developing country, some poor village, building up clean water infrastructure, etc. Yet to only have the villagers dismantle the clean water filtration systems to scavenge the parts for other household goods, and then being instructed by the organizations to intentionally dismantle the equipment to prevent the villagers from “doing it wrong.” (true story)

    Mission impossible?

    Missio— mitto— to send out.

    Meyth— to change, to exchange, to remove.

    Mey— to strengthen, to change, to exchange, to bind, to change places.

    I find the etymology behind the concept of going on a “mission“ as fascinating. Why? It is kind of related to traveling, changing places, change and exchange. Let us consider that in terms of modern day global finance, a lot of money is made through currency exchanges. Also for myself, whenever I travel abroad, and I exchange or change the place in which I live and breathe for a certain period of time, and then I go back to the states, I come back a transform person. Even though Southern California may be the same, I am changed. And this is good.

    How to go on more missions in life?

    I suppose the general notion of Tom Cruise, mission, Mission impossible is this general notion that you do not stay at home. When Tom Cruise gets a “mission“, he is typically dispatched to go to some sort of dangerous place, in order to either resolve, solve, or fix some sort of potentially dangerous problem.

    Or let us consider my beloved John Wick. Let us consider all of the international intercontinental hotels he visits, in Rome, and also the wonderfully fantastic Osaka Intercontinental in John Wick 4.

    Traveling as a good way to discover your mission in life?

    Colloquially when we talk about “mission“, we mean to talk about some sort of generalized concept of some sort of higher purpose or calling in life. That is you pursue some thing for autotelic purposes, not for just making money.

    Once again I think this is a tricky thing to understand, because I think typically we believe that money motivates people to do things. This is true to a certain extent. For example, most people would probably not work full-time as Amazon prime delivery truck drivers, Uber drivers, or even K-12 public school teachers if they had the opportunity not to. Most people if they won $1 billion in the lottery, would immediately quit their jobs. No matter how much they convinced themselves that “it is their passion.”

    Military living stipend?

    An interesting thought that I got from Nietzsche was his idea that with professions, perhaps we should just be paid some sort of honorarium— some sort of relieve base salary, or payment to just cover our basic living costs. For example, working in the military. You earn enough money when you are out doing dangerous stuff to just ensure that you have enough money coming in that you don’t need to worry about money. Yet typically military people do not enter the military for pay. I think most people or at least men who enter the military, young men, it is because they desire some sort of sense of adventure, challenge, and to become “more manly”.

    Even something that I realized about academics, the academy, becoming a professor, tenure-track professor is that it is almost like entering the military. When you are in graduate school, you essentially live like a monk, imagine trying to live in the bay area in Berkeley earning only $22,000 a year. I actually had a friend who became an involuntary vegan, subsisting on lentils and rice when he was at his UC Berkeley PhD program because his graduate school stipend barely covered his rent, let alone his food.
    On the flipside, I think our labor should be valued, and we should not self flagellate or think it is virtuous to accept less pay or money. Yet once again, ultimately being a missionary, we do things for autotelic higher purposes, not for pay.

    What motivates John Wick?

    Is John Wick motivated by money? No. He has higher missions; avenging the murder of his beloved cute dog that he got from his deceased wife, seeking revenge, staying alive, trying to get out of the game, etc.

    Money making as a mission?

    I have a theory; perhaps the reason why people are so obsessed with making money in today’s world is that it is a very simple, quantified mission, and something which is praised according to modern day capitalism. To continue to accrue a higher salary, to put more money in the bank, and to indefinitely grow your funds in capital is seen as the ultimate virtue.

    Thus the mission of the modern day person: indefinitely accrue more money and capital.

    What should your mission be in life?

    Now this is a more tricky thought; the philosophy of things. That is, is there a “should“, in regards to what you “should“ do in your life?

    First and foremost no. You “should“ not have to be forced to do anything that you don’t want to do. Certainly there are basic things like paying your rent, feeding yourself etc. Yet if you really do want financial independence or whatever, best to just live in Hanoi Vietnam, where you could rent a brand new studio apartment really nice, for only $350 USD a month.

    Even in the states, I subsist on a 100% carnivore diet, 100% beef, or lamb as a luxury. At the Costco Business Center, even with inflation and considering what I coined the “beef index”, most beef could still be had for $2.99 a pound, $3.99 a pound, etc. Most people cannot consume that much meat or beef anyways. I eat a lot, typically 3 to 4 pounds of beef a day. But if you are the modern-day American who could only eat 1 pound, maybe 2 pounds tops, you could feed yourself on easily five dollars a day.

    Also being creative in terms of paying rent. There are many intelligent ways that you could spend less money on rent, for example, life sharing, renting out a room in a home, living with family, etc. I still believe that the greatest path in life is towards self-employment and self entrepreneurship. Therefore reducing your expenses to the minimum is the wise path.

    Also a recent realization, in terms of transportation. Assuming that you live in Southern California and need a car, it really seems that the best car to get is some sort of older used white Prius. For example I recently re-inherited our old 2010 Prius, and I love it! Lamborghinis, Porsches are for losers. If I were to get a all electric car, it would probably just be a super base level Tesla model 3 in white.

    Your mission?

    A simple thought is perhaps a great and grand calling in mission in life is in regards to art, philosophy, and entrepreneurship.

    1. Pursue art

    First, if you’re reading this I assume that you’re some sort of photographer, visual artist, etc. Devoting your life and focusing your life on art is a great path. For example, artists last. It seems that society is moved much by artists. Let us consider modern day artists who include Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Jay-Z, etc.

    Or, other artists like Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, or going back to the old-school like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.

    The tricky thing is in today’s world, the notion of being a “artist” has been commodified. That is, we need to somehow make money, or a lot of money from art to justify it.

    However, let us consider Michelangelo and painting the Sistine chapel. Essentially he just had a sponsor and was paid an honorarium to do it. Also Leonardo da Vinci, a full stack renaissance man. To call him an “artist“ is almost too feeble of a notion. He was a fully developed man.

    Therefore first and foremost, pursuing art is a good mission in life — assuming that your art has a higher purpose, and you seek to empower future human beings from it.

    2. Philosophy

    The second stack is philosophy. Thinking meditating and writing and publishing and blogging and blogging your thoughts, ideas, and philosophies in regards to philosophy.

    What is philosophy anyways? To me basically put, philosophy is discovering and considering the “why” of things. That is, to consider the purpose behind things, and thinking about notions of “should“ and “should not”.

    The reason why philosophy is such a critical path is that it saves us a lot of time and effort.

    For example, some people toil away for decades, 30 40 50 years to make a bunch of money and to become “successful“. But, if you critically thought about it, from a philosophical perspective, and you realized that this was an ineffective path, you just saved 30 to 40 years of your life.

    Or a funny philosophical innovation I made and discovered; rather than spending $250,000, $350,000 on a car or a Lamborghini, better to just do insanely epic demigod weightlifting one rep max style at the gym, and transform your own body into a Lamborghini.

    3. Empowering humanity

    Perhaps one of my missions in life is to help empower other fellow entrepreneurs. Thus my passion with ERIC KIM COFFEE, ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE; to create the world’s best coffee to inspire motivate and uplift entrepreneurs and great thinkers.

    Also, coffee as the ultimate stimulant and substance to get you going, before and going to the gym. I don’t think there has yet been a coffee tailored for weight lifters, powerlifters, or hypelifters. This is where I believe that my fine robusta, 100% fine robusta to be such a strong idea; maximum caffeine content which is also “safer“ than these dangerous pre-workout cocaine powder.

    4. Passion for marketing?

    In modern day times, marketing gets a bad rap. It is seen as a disrespectful form of doing things, yet in truth, I think marketing is great. I personally believe that marketing is a great artistic endeavors, and also highly practical.

    I suppose I am very fortunate because one of my passions in life is marking. And this is the fun that I had with ERIC KIM OMAKASE Coffee.

    I think what is lacking in coffee, marketing and coffee, individual coffee bags and beans is a lack of some sort of focus on how it will help improve your life.

    For example, the productivity coffee, the entrepreneur. There is zero doubt that coffee makes us more productive. It does. So why not just brand it for what it is?

    Also, thinking philosophy and coffee. Some of the greatest minds in history have been aided with coffee. For example, even my beloved Nassim Taleb is hugely inspired by coffee. Also, most thinkers, writers, creative people I know drink coffee and love it.

    Third, photography and coffee. Photography is my ultimate Archimedes lever, I don’t know a single photographer who doesn’t love coffee and coffee shops.

    Therefore maybe another fun mission I could do in life is to try to teach more marketing concepts to other people?

    What is “OMAKASE”?

    The reason why I branded it as ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE is I like that idea of having an experimental tasting menu. That is why with every order of ERIC KIM OMAKASE Coffee, you get three individualized bags:

    1. THE ENTREPRENEUR: The golden bag, optimize to unleash your fullest maximum in your entrepreneurship. 100% find robusta, 12 out of 10 caffeine content, to motivate you into maximum productivity.
    2. THE THINKER: The first coffee to be branded and marketed as being a positively beneficial aid to your thinking. A sublime roast with bright and yellow blueberries, 100% fine robusta, to kickstart your creative thinking.
    3. THE PHOTOGRAPHER: The black bag. I believe drinking great coffee as 1000X times better than buying a new camera lens or camera equipment. Shout out to Anthony Larson for taking me to chromatic coffee roasters in San Jose, insanely great coffee, insanely great espresso as bringing me 1000 times more joy than even the world’s most expensive Leica camera. In fact, I would probably prefer to have 100 bags of ERIC KIM coffee than to have the worlds most expensive camera.

    The next coffee roast I envision as creating to replace the silly port pre-workout powder is. A coffee optimized for the gym, weight lifters, competitive athletes. Once again 100% fine robusta.

    SEIZE ERIC KIM COFFEE >


    Prius thoughts

    Recently we we re-inherited our old 2010 Prius, and after using it a few days to just commute around, go to the gym and yoga, go to the local Costco Business Center etc., I love it! Why?

    I think there is something about the 2010 model that I like in so far much as the dashboard is quite minimal. No stupid and touch screens or LCD screens to distract us.

    I am such an insanely huge fan of Tesla, Elon Musk etc., yet the big downside that I see is that I find the touchscreen to be more annoying than useful. In fact I think in today’s world, not having a touchscreen or LCD screens is the ultimate luxury.

    For example if I wanted some sort of sublime sports car, I would prefer a 100% manual transmission, no air conditioning, no car radio or info tenement system, no power steering, etc. Very much like my original 1990 Mazda Miata that I had, five speed with no frills. Even the new Porsche cars, 911 GT 3RS, has too many superfluous dials and LCD screens in the car.

    Why hybrid?

    I still think in modern day life, a hybrid car is best. Why? If you drive a hybrid, a Prius or whatever, you might only need to fill up your tank every two weeks, maybe even every three weeks, or just once a month! In terms of lifestyle, and this is much easier than having to hunt around for electric car chargers.

    Also, for myself I think only having an electric car or a Tesla will be worth it the moment in which recharging your car from 0 to 100 is actually faster than filling up your gas tank. For example, filling up my gas tank might only take me two or three minutes. I think in order for an electric car or a Tesla to entice me, the new Tesla supercharger mark II must go from 0 to 100 in less than a minute. In terms of physics this may not be possible, but I think the pursuit is worth it.


    Incoming Workshops

    Incoming ERIC KIM workshops headed to you:

    1. October 14th: CONQUER THE STREETS OF PHILLY
    2. Feb 10, 2024: SUBLIME CREATIVITY WORKSHOP SEATTLE

    Also, I am currently working on new workshops in downtown LA, as well as New York City. The focus of New York City will be about becoming a visual artist, in downtown LA will also be centered around this visual artist notion.

    I’m also thinking about doing some sort of workshops on marketing entrepreneurship, blogging, vlogging, YouTube, media etc. State posted on this newsletter or the workshops page.


    SoCal is Paradise

    The exciting news is that soon me and Cindy are moving to LA, maybe Santa Monica, Culver City, somewhere around there.

    What I realized about Los Angeles etc. is that even though Southern California is not perfect, it is still paradise for me. Why? Maximal sunlight, maximum brightness. Something that I have discovered about my own personal physiology is that I thrive with the sun. Las Vegas and Texas and Arizona is maybe too bright and too hot for me.

    Also I really love the gym fitness culture in Southern California. And also lots of different yoga studios for Cindy to go to.

    Some thing I have discovered through my travels and being abroad; honestly all places suck. The best strategy is to just reap the maximum upside of wherever you live, no matter how shitty it may be.


    Now what?

    Blogging, vlogging, building and developing and innovating websites still the future.

    Also, photography and video and the internet.

    Start building your own website blog, wordpress.org platform with Amazon web services.


    Photography is the way!

    Never stop photographing!

    ERIC KIM START HERE, BOOKS, PRODUCTS

    ERIC


    Infinite motivation on EK BLOG >



  • STREET PHOTOGRAPHY X VISUAL ARTIST: ERIC KIM HANOI

    DROPBOX PDF DOWNLOAD SLIDES >


  • How to Become a More Productive Photographer

    I believe the path to the greatest happiness as a photographer is becoming more productive as a photographer. This means, literally just producing more photos.

    Investing in production

    For example, the secret to true wealth is through production. To produce things, ideas, concepts, etc.

    I think the problem in today’s world is that we strive to create wealth through “investments” and other insubstantial sources of capital swapping. For example, let’s say you speculate in some sort of asset, and the price goes up and you sell it. Have you created any new wealth? Not really.

    I believe that true wealth, true capital is created through production. For example, producing new knowledge and information, like I have done with all of my books, e-books, presets, my infamous start here page, learn from the masters, etc. Truth be told, simply through my blog and my series of blog posts, I think I’ve created more valuable information on photography education than all of the photo books out there published combined, times 10.

    The education mafia?

    A secret expose; Pearson, the UK-based printing house and publisher, I think they blacklisted my 100 lessons from the masters of photography through a fraud millennium take down request. There is nothing in my 100 lessons from the masters of photography book which is “copyrighted”. My theory:

    Apparently Pearson also publishes photography education books. Therefore, I think they thought my ebook as a threat, and put down some phony take down request to Google, in order to blacklisted, in order to peddle more of their mediocre photo education books.

    MASTERS MOBILE PDF >

    Becoming a missionary?

    One of the very interesting thoughts from Peter Thiel in his zero to one book what is the difference between a mercenary and a missionary. A mercenary simply does something for money, a missionary does something because he or she believes in its true mission.

    I have an unorthodox theory on “success“:

    Missionaries who so insanely believe in their mission end up becoming insanely successful because they care so much about the mission.

    This means, true missionaries start with a deep intrinsic mission, and strive towards it with all of their strength and might. Money success and fame simply comes after the fact.

    For example, Elon Musk didn’t set out to initially to become the worlds richest and most tycoon of a man. Rather, he simply had a vested interest in colonizing space and Mars, and everything else was a byproduct of that.


    So what is my mission?

    For myself, my personal mission is to propagate the joy photography to all. Also, to seek practical solutions to help us seek more joy satisfaction and thriving in photography.

    For example, personal annoyances and other things drive my photography. My never ending quest to seek to make more beautiful photos, practical and philosophical theories on photography as well as pragmatic thoughts on travel, living, life, fitness, etc.

    In fact, most of my epiphanies, takeaways, and thoughts simply are derived from a personal quest and hunger for seeking greater answers.

    A self driven mission

    I think the ultimate autotelic approach, a self driven mission or purpose or end goal is predicated on the notion of pursuing your own mission for your own ends and your own personal goals. What I love about this is that with an autotelic approach in life you will never run out of inspiration and motivation because you are doing it for the sake of itself, rather than some sort of externally defined notion of success.

    In fact, I believe that more people would thrive if they gave themselves permission to simply do things for the sake of itself, rather than needing some sort of explanation. Also, more photographers would thrive if they didn’t have an Instagram, deleted their Instagram, or didn’t share photos to Facebook or social media.

    Why? The negative part of social media is that it attaches a numerical value to yourself and your photos. This is patently bad, because the value of your photos shouldn’t be weighed on a biased algorithm or based on fake likes from big pots, or superficial likes from people who are just seeking to kill time.


    Photo Health

    I have a big theory; If you want to strive to maximize your productivity as a photographer, I think it is metabolic and also part health related.

    Supple strength in your legs, bulging muscles, straight back, 100% carnivore diet. Also intermittent fasting during the day!

    Beef, lamb, innards. On fast days eat pork — pork isn’t red meat, it is “pink” meat.


    2000 photos a day?

    A thought; ironically enough, I don’t think we shoot enough. We got digital, why not shoot 2000, 5000, 10,000 photos a day?


    Why does this all matter?

    This matters because photography is our life-blood, and photography gives us deep joy. For me, photography itself makes life worth living!

    For example, photography affords us new hopes to travel, see more of the world, to adventure, conquer, and push ourselves beyond. No other form of thing affords us the opportunity to both be physical, to adventure, to travel, and do something creatively productive.

    If you saw it, and traveled and didn’t photograph it, certainly you can still have a great time. But to be able to experience new and great things and photograph is truly phenomenal!

    ERIC


    Where shall you go next?

    Travel with EK:

    1. PHILLY STREET PHOTO WORKSHOP (OCTOBER 14, 2023)
    2. OBTAIN SUBLIME CREATIVITY IN SEATTLE (FEB 10, 2024)

    Incoming workshops:

    1. Downtown LA MASTER STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP 2023
    2. SOUTH KOREA WORKSHOP Summer 2024

    EK WORKSHOPS


    SAIGON STREET PHOTO TALK

    VIDEO FILE

    Download PDF >

    Podcast

    AUDIO

    Dropbox PDF

    Google Drive PDF

    Did a one day street photo talk in Saigon, some topics we covered:

    COMPOSITION
    PHILOSOPHY
    WHY?
    MOTIVAITON
    TECHNIQUE & APPROACH
    SELF VALUE
    OPEN MINDEDNESS
    CHILD’S MIND
    ‘SUCCESS’?
    COURAGE
    HAPPINESS
    INSPIRATION
    HOW TO SEE
    NEW PHOTOS
    SOCIOLOGY
    WHY I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY
    WHY I LOVE VIETNAM
    DETAILS
    EVOLUTION
    USE YOUR KIDS!
    MALL STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
    STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AS AN ETHOS AND APPROACH
    THE SUCCESS TRAP
    HOW TO BECOME A ‘BETTER’ STREET PHOTOGRAPHER
    HEALTH
    HAPPY PHOTOS
    MOOD
    FLASH
    MUSE
    AESTHETICS
    MYSTERY
    NOW WHAT?
    CREATIVE SCREENSHOTTING
    YOU NEVER KNOW!

    See all the slides here >

    Gonna do another talk in Hanoi in a week (new information) — stay posted.


    CONQUER THE STREETS

    Conquer with HAPTIC:

    1. ERIC KIM NECK STRAP (MARK II): For the brave and reckless
    2. HENRI NECK STRAP MARK IV: For the insanely bold
    3. EK WRIST STRAP MARK II: For the practical

    Discover all products


    Other things on my mind

    1. Perhaps MacBook Pro laptop is best — better than iPad Pro. Why? Sooner or later you will hit the 2TB limit, which makes iPad a dud.
    2. America is still the best place to be in terms of entrepreneurship
    3. Privacy for the sake of focus

    More infinite thoughts on blog >


    Now what?

    1. Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com
    2. Have a chat with WHY APP? to discover deeper meaning in your life

    Share the turbo

    EK NEWS >


    Productivity thoughts

    1. To become more productive, maximize your exposure to natural light!
    2. Productivity is in your legs! Every day is leg day. ATLAS LIFT.
    3. Street photo is the way

    Master it all:

    STREET PHOTO 101 >



  • How to Become a More Productive Photographer

    I believe the path to the greatest happiness as a photographer is becoming more productive as a photographer. This means, literally just producing more photos.

    Investing in production

    For example, the secret to true wealth is through production. To produce things, ideas, concepts, etc.

    I think the problem in today’s world is that we strive to create wealth through “investments” and other insubstantial sources of capital swapping. For example, let’s say you speculate in some sort of asset, and the price goes up and you sell it. Have you created any new wealth? Not really.

    I believe that true wealth, true capital is created through production. For example, producing new knowledge and information, like I have done with all of my books, e-books, presets, my infamous start here page, learn from the masters, etc. Truth be told, simply through my blog and my series of blog posts, I think I’ve created more valuable information on photography education than all of the photo books out there published combined, times 10.

    The education mafia?

    A secret expose; Pearson, the UK-based printing house and publisher, I think they blacklisted my 100 lessons from the masters of photography through a fraud millennium take down request. There is nothing in my 100 lessons from the masters of photography book which is “copyrighted”. My theory:

    Apparently Pearson also publishes photography education books. Therefore, I think they thought my ebook as a threat, and put down some phony take down request to Google, in order to blacklisted, in order to peddle more of their mediocre photo education books.

    Becoming a missionary?

    One of the very interesting thoughts from Peter Thiel in his zero to one book what is the difference between a mercenary and a missionary. A mercenary simply does something for money, a missionary does something because he or she believes in its true mission.

    I have an unorthodox theory on “success“:

    Missionaries who so insanely believe in their mission end up becoming insanely successful because they care so much about the mission.

    This means, true missionaries start with a deep intrinsic mission, and strive towards it with all of their strength and might. Money success and fame simply comes after the fact.

    For example, Elon Musk didn’t set out to initially to become the worlds richest and most tycoon of a man. Rather, he simply had a vested interest in colonizing space and Mars, and everything else was a byproduct of that.


    So what is my mission?

    For myself, my personal mission is to propagate the joy photography to all. Also, to seek practical solutions to help us seek more joy satisfaction and thriving in photography.

    For example, personal annoyances and other things drive my photography. My never ending quest to seek to make more beautiful photos, practical and philosophical theories on photography as well as pragmatic thoughts on travel, living, life, fitness, etc.

    In fact, most of my epiphanies, takeaways, and thoughts simply are derived from a personal quest in hunger for seeking greater answers.

    A self driven mission


  • CHU VIET HA ERIC KIM FUJIFILM SAIGON STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP TALK VIETNAM

    VIDEO FILE

    TOPICS COVERED:

    1. COMPOSITION
    2. PHILOSOPHY
    3. WHY?
    4. MOTIVAITON
    5. TECHNIQUE & APPROACH
    6. SELF VALUE
    7. OPEN MINDEDNESS
    8. CHILD’S MIND
    9. ‘SUCCESS’?
    10. COURAGE
    11. HAPPINESS
    12. INSPIRATION
    13. HOW TO SEE
    14. NEW PHOTOS
    15. SOCIOLOGY
    16. WHY I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY
    17. WHY I LOVE VIETNAM
    18. DETAILS
    19. EVOLUTION
    20. USE YOUR KIDS!
    21. MALL STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
    22. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AS AN ETHOS AND APPROACH
    23. THE SUCCESS TRAP
    24. HOW TO BECOME A ‘BETTER’ STREET PHOTOGRAPHER
    25. HEALTH
    26. HAPPY PHOTOS
    27. MOOD
    28. FLASH
    29. MUSE
    30. AESTHETICS
    31. MYSTERY
    32. NOW WHAT?
    33. CREATIVE SCREENSHOTTING
    34. YOU NEVER KNOW!

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  • STREET PHOTOGRAPHY VIETNAM SAIGON PRESENTATION SLIDES PDF


  • PHOTO MEMORIES II


  • PHOTO MEMORIES


  • How to Stimulate Economic Activity

    Something that is currently on my mind is the thought of stimulating economic opportunity and activity. That is, how do you move people metaphorically and physically?


    Not money, but economic activity?

    An interesting thing being here in Korea; everyone uses the Korean won, KRW. A simple estimate is 10,000 won is around 8 dollars USD.

    To me as an American, this is wholly confusing because I don’t really have a sense of how much things cost. For example let’s say you want to buy a home or a car, two very expensive things, the amount of zeros in commas is mind blowing.

    Also, a funny thought at the end of the day:

    It is all just monopoly play money.

    For example, whenever I see a 10,000 won note, or even a 50,000 won note, it looks like fake money or play money to me. The same thing is when I see Vietnamese dong, or now even the US dollar.

    My current thought is the best way to use and leverage money is to stimulate economic activity and to produce new things of value. For example, are insanely excited to share the announcement of HAPTIC ARMOR — available in the HAPTIC SHOP and ready for preorder. Shipping will begin mid August 2023. Don’t miss your chance to be the select few innovators to get this never-before seen product.

    Learn more about HAPTIC ARMOR >


    Why produce?

    When I was back in Kyoto, I came up with this notion of “producerism“, the antithesis or the exact opposite of consumerism. The negative bias that we got in today’s world is that we think that we can only purchase things that we like, the culture of producing and making stuff that we like is a non-concept.

    For example, let us say that you are really into fashion and design and other stuff like that. The typical workflow that we do is that we simply peruse stores, the internet etc., and we try to use our discerning taste to purchase clothing items or fashion items which we believe to echo our own personal aesthetic. However I believe a much more empowering path is to figure out how to obtain purchase and procure the raw material, and get either your mom, or someone with skills to actually sew and produce it.

    ALPHAWEAVE

    I ever since becoming an itinerant nomad, I have a passion for fabrics and materials which I believe to be the most supreme. For example, my never ending quest to discover, produce, the best travel clothing, whether it be Marino wool for T-shirts, Lululemon license to train shorts with zippers in the front and back, or even the vibram five finger shoes. And the exofficio boxer briefs.

    Nomad Equipment

    Something that I personally believe in is that if you desire to achieve the best possible life and lifestyle, becoming some sort of intermittent nomad is the best one. I call it the Genghis Khan lifestyle. That the purpose your life isn’t to buy a nice house somewhere and settle down, but always to be “on the road” or in transit, in between places. Never in one spot forever.

    Some equipment that I am currently innovating:

    1. ERIC KIM CASH ARMOR: I have had a passion for merino wool the last decade or so, yet a new material and fabric which is new and foreign to me is cashmere. I actually believe that cashmere is the future and is merino wool 2.0; it is superior in terms of function. Another day I just put a typed traditional Japanese/Korean inspired cloak, made out of 100% cashmere. It is like my invisibility cloak.
    2. HAPTIC LINEN: While in Hadong South Korea, I discovered this new type of linen which I believe to be the game changer. Essentially it is 100% linen imported from Lithuania, one of the highest quality linen fabrics in the world. Yet what makes it interesting is that there is a South Korean company which processes and weaves the fabric, creating a unique three-dimensional grid weave pattern, with traditional Korean aesthetics. What makes it so phenomenal is that it is insanely strong, because it has a three dimensional hexagonal pattern; think of the octagon, which is one of the most powerful and robust patterns out there; just think of beehives and honeybees. We already have a prototype proof of concept product, which we will release an extremely limited quantities (first run is only 20 units). The use cases of it include an every day bath towel which dries insanely quickly, the other day Cindy used it to dry her self and Seneca off, and then I used it, and it was still dry. And within a few hours it already dried. Compare this to the hateful nature of cotton; it is heavy, smells bad, and takes forever to dry. It also doubles as a hot yoga mat towel; when you’re doing yoga or hot yoga, you can just drop it above your yoga mat, to prevent slippage. The third use case is using it as a rope or a shawl when out and about in nature or hiking, it is insanely breathable and can protect you from strong sun. Learn more about HAPTIC LINEN ARMOR >

    THE FUTURE?

    What is the future of the new global economy? Not China, not Japan. The issue is that more and more companies are leaving China because of the tense political relationship between America and China. Let us consider that most manufacturing is all moving to Vietnam; Lululemon makes their clothing in Vietnam, Samsung makes their smartphones in Vietnam, and I think Apple is starting to move more production into Vietnam, I think they produced some AirPods in Vietnam.

    I call it the Golden triangle; America, Korea and Vietnam.

    America because it is the center of the universe; it has the world’s biggest military, and also the worlds highest spending power. South Korea I am shocked; the spending power of South Koreans is very strong. And third Vietnam, a new emerging middle class and noveau riche class in Vietnam, and also it is becoming the new mega production center.

    Also, Samsung Hyundai Kia genesis and LG. America used to buy Sony TVs, now it seems that all the smart TVs produced and purchased in America are now all Samsung. Also, Americans are buying lots of Hyundai, Kia and Genesis cars. I think that Hyundai/Kia/Genesis will become the new Toyota and Lexus.

    Why?

    So a big thought is what is the purpose of economic activity and stirring and stimulating economic activity?

    First, I think economic activity just makes everybody happier. For example, building new things, new buildings, new concepts motivates people. Second, it is good for world peace. If mainland Chinese want to keep purchasing iPhone Pros, would they really want to invade and create some sort of new World War III? No.

    I also as individual entrepreneurs, life is just more fun and interesting. It is all an economic risk, but isn’t that what makes life fun and interesting?

    How can you as an individual solo person stimulate economic activity?

    Very very simple; produce products and attempt to sell them to other people, plan and schedule workshops or travel experiences and try to get people to sign up for them and travel with you, or just motivate people to do something.

    For example, my personal impetus is that I want to inspire and motivate people to create more. To become more creative.


    How to Become More Creative

    Becoming more creative— some tips:

    Creativity is our life blood. I believe the maximally happy life is the most creative one!

    1. Create like a Child

    The first thought is become more like a child. Why? A child creates without constraints, hesitation or fear.

    Honestly one of the best benefits of having a kid is that it is probably the most interesting witness to creativity; you learn and understand how a child is creative, and you could cross reference this to your own adult life.

    2. “Name one genius that ain’t crazy!”

    I think it was once Aristotle who said something that behind every genius is a touch of madness.

    I think in order to create recklessly, you must allow yourself to become a little “crazy“. Let us consider, how crazy people thought when Thomas Edison was trying to invent his lightbulb, how crazy people Elon Musk thought when he was trying to start Tesla and SpaceX, or how crazy people thought that Nikola Tesla was.

    What is “craziness“ anyways? Unless you are actually afflicted with a obvious mental disorder, when people call you “crazy“, what do you mean to say is this:

    “What you are doing or saying is so unlike what I believe in, how dare you be so unlike me!”

    3. Creative spaces?

    I think I also believe in is that there are certain physical spaces which encourage more creativity. Typically if you are surrounded by rolling hills, and greenery, a forest, and big open spaces, this will encourage more creativity.

    Something that I have discovered more recently is Hadong South Korea is my new creative paradise!


    4. Creative collaborative partners?

    Perhaps the best optimization you could make in life is when it comes to marrying your partner, marry somebody you could be maximal creative with. For example, Cindy.


    Why the economy?

    What is the economy? To me it is just movement and activity of human people and bodies. For example, anything that can help motivate people to move literally and metaphorically is good.

    For example, after John Wick came out, how many people were inspired to buy muscle cars or black dress shirts and blazers?

    Or, let us consider how effectively Henri Cartier Bresson revolutionized photography and the whole photo industry; it is precisely because of a Henri Cartier Bresson that photography became mainstream. And also even now, the only reason someone will buy a Leica camera or Leica M rangefinder is because of Henri Cartier Besson. Essentially the ethos of Leica is simple; if you purchase our cameras you can become Henri Cartier Bresson. Or also more recently, by purchasing a Ricoh GR camera you can become ERIC KIM.


    Now what?

    Very very simple. The number one most critical thing you do is start your website, self-hosted. The current workflow I recommend is building a WordPress website with Amazon web services.

    Second, use media as your Archimedes lever. Produce videos, thought pieces, anything that can inspire other people.

    Third, I currently believe that the best marketing tool is having your own self hosted email newsletter. That is, I recommend using sendy.co and setting up your email platform with Amazon web services (SES)— simple email service. The future is not Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, not even YouTube.

    What do you desire to do?

    I am no longer interested in what you can become; I am more interested in what you could do. What you could build, innovate, and put out there in the real world, or even the digital world. This is the great inspiring and motivating thought!

    ERIC


    Innovate with EK

    EK EXPERIENCES — curated and bespoke experiences to elevate and advance you to the next level:

    1. PHILLY
    2. SEATTLE

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    HAPTIC ARMOR

    Conquer the unknown with HAPTIC ARMOR >


    Build now!

    Don’t delay, build now!

    ERIC


    Fortuna Adiuvat Fortis

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    Share the love!

    If this inspired you, feel free to forward this to a friend!

    ERIC



  • Abstract Seneca


  • HAPPY PHOTOS


  • How to Become More Adventurous

    One of my favorite things to do with Sen and myself in general, is this notion of “adventure time“. That is, anything that involves getting out of the house!

    I first thing to consider is that the basic notion of adventure time is super simple; just getting your ass out of the house.

    Why “adventure time“?

    What is it that we desire? I think ultimately, we desire and hunger for more adventure, more escapades with danger, things to test or courage etc.

    However, I think modern day life has us much more cowardly. That means, one is not permitted to be adventurous.

    What is one permitted to do in modern day society? We are permitted to go to the mall and buy stuff, we are permitted to buy a new car, we are permitted to buy a house, and every once in a while we are permitted to go on vacation, or travel.

    It seems that the closest thing that we got to adventure in modern day times is travel. Traveling to foreign places is the closest thing that we got to adventure. Why is this? What is an adventure anyways?

    Adventure — “to arrive”. Advenio, toward + come.

    I think in the general sense, adventure, towards what I think is to go towards something. Ad + venture (venture, to attempt).

    “Venture” capitalist?

    What is a VC, a venture capitalist? I think a venture capitalist is somebody who wants to go on some sort of metaphorical adventure, in terms of attempting to build something. If you think about it, being a venture capitalist is very very positive and optimistic. Why? It insinuates some sort of potentially very good outcome, that’s the right investment in the thing will yield a positive return!

    Becoming more optimistic in life?

    Currently speaking, I think America and the world is going through a weird time. There is no optimism.

    For example, Joe Biden. Nobody likes Joe Biden. Not even liberal Democrats. I only voted for him because he wasn’t Donald Trump.

    I am still very very confused how Joe Biden even got elected. Conspiracy theories aside, I think honestly 99.9% of people just voted for him because he wasn’t Donald Trump.

    Maybe the reason why Donald Trump lost was because he caved in and also signed the stimulus bill. Maybe this was a sign of weakness?


    The future

    Some optimistic thoughts:

    1. Assuming that America continues to increase her debt ceiling, and also, as the US dollar inflation is getting out of control, I think there will be renewed interest in bitcoin and other crypto and crypto currencies. My personal target price for bitcoin currently in the interim is at least $100,000.
    2. At least one of the good things about TikTok is that it shows that there is still room for competition with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube etc. Also the future of video podcast, super easy to do with anchor.fm which is currently owned by Spotify.
    3. Time to go all in on Tesla: every single day, here in Southern California, I see more and more Tesla‘s on the road. It is simple; Tesla is the only electric car. All electric other cars suck. Also considering that California is going to soon been purchasing of gasoline cars in the future, everyone is going to go electric. also, consider the power of over the air updates on Tesla; as time goes on, Tesla cars will keep getting better and better. And also day by day, the Tesla super charging network continues to grow. Also, I think ultimately people want a Tesla because it is like owning the new iPhone. in fact the truth is owning a Tesla is actually more inconvenient than owning a gasoline or hybrid car, but people want a Tesla for the sexiness factor. Because objectively speaking, I personally believe the ride quality in the Tesla model three to be very poor, and even though the minimalism of the interior is beautiful and sublime, the quality of the materials actually feel very cheap. I went to a Lexus experience center recently, and I was shocked; the materials in the Lexus feel at least 1000 times or 10,000 times better than any Tesla car, even when compared to the Tesla model S and Tesla model X plaid.
    4. Travel. Go to Mexico City, go to Roma Norte. Go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. Go to Hanoi Vietnam or Saigon Vietnam. Go to South Korea. Go to Seoul, and stop by and say hi to my mom in Hadong.
    5. Have a kid, at least one. The funny millennial trend is towards not having kids, but owning cats or dogs instead. Why this trend? My personal theory is that people see kids, having a kid as a net negative on their life and happiness; they are afraid that having a kid will limit their freedom, ability to travel, eat good food, etc. Yet having a kid can be by far the most optimistic thing you can do. Why? having a kid is naturally optimistic; every single day they continue to grow physically and mentally, and they learn new abilities and tricks. For example, Seneca is currently only two years and three months old, and he is a genius. He already knows how to make beats on the iPhone, iPad, GarageBand on the laptop as well. And he knows how to do computer programming with swift playgrounds on the iPad and even on the laptop. I think a simple life goal, assuming that you are a man, is to have at least one boy. Then after that, all the additional kids are just upside.
    6. The optimism of the gym and weightlifting. I personally believe that the upside of Jim, gym culture and gym life is that you see steady improvement and gains in the gym. For example, assuming that you go to the gym every single day, can you lift very very heavy, one rep max style, you will continue to see your muscles grow, and also your testosterone self-esteem etc. to go up. Also, assuming that you go to the gym at least once a day, even twice a day; you’re going to make new friends. And I think there is something very positive about being around other human beings, both men and women, both male and female. why? When you witness a beautiful woman, I think this increases your testosterone. Also, I think if you see other muscular men lifting heavy weights, this also increases your testosterone. Also the extreme joy of just chatting with strangers at the gym, making new friends. at worst, you can always just go to the gym and take a nap in the hot sauna, it is very rejuvenating and restorative. Also, just sign up for a local yoga membership, at a local yoga studio, whether it be CorePower or raw yoga, etc. I think being in a hot steamy and sweaty room with other human beings with hormones in the air is somehow good for us.

    Adventure with EK

    1. Tomorrow is the last day for the early bird cutoff price for the all-new DOWNTOWN LA CONQUER YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY AND LIFE WORKSHOP
    2. If you desire to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, join me in Saigon Vietnam this summer
    3. October 14th: CONQUER THE STREETS OF PHILLY WITH ME

    EK WORKSHOPS >


    The gym as an adventure

    My personal theory behind weightlifting and the gym;

    It is only fun and worthwhile yes there is a great deal of risk, danger, and courage required.

    For example my insane 940 pound atlas lift. 99.99999% of the population has never even seen over nine plates on a bar. For reference, that is nine 45 pound plates, a 35, a clip, and an additional 2.5 pounder clipped on the barbell.

    Once I hit over 1000 pounds, I’ll have a little celebration. Then continue onto 1200 pounds.

    I personally believe that physical danger, physical courage is the only real type of courage. Sure, we can be metaphorically courageous in regards to our thoughts, beliefs, freedom of speech etc., but I think when it comes down to it, you cannot fake physical courage at the gym.

    Also the nice thought is that ultimately, it doesn’t even matter whether you can successfully lift it or not. To me, if you even have the courage and the hype and the self-confidence and the audacious insanity to even attempt it, you are a hero.


    Street Photography is an adventure

    Even with Street Photography, the reason why I find it so insanely fascinating is because of the fact that it requires insane amounts of courage. I truly believe that street photography is 99.99% courage.

    Also, with street photography, it is like an adventure. To travel to foreign places is an adventure. Also, to put yourself in situations which require courage is also an adventure.

    There is no end limit to photography and street photography, given that you will continue to travel intermittently for the rest of your life.


    Exercises and assignments to make you more courageous?

    How does one become more courageous, more daring, and also more adventurous?

    Some simple thoughts and assignments.

    First, if you see somebody that you’re interested in for one reason or another, attempt to make small talk with them.

    Another thought, go to the gym at least once a day.

    Also, travel somewhere. It doesn’t even have to be far. Just something or somewhere which is outside your own sphere.

    Even going on a cruise is an adventure!


    Now what?

    A simple thought to life; when in doubt, choose adventure!

    ERIC


    EK PHILOSOPHY

    Think on >

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    How to become more entrepreneurial in your photography

    Entrepreneurship by KIM >


    Adventure movies?

    There seems to be a while since there has been a good adventure movie, like Lord of the rings. I like the notion of adventure movies because life is an adventure. Or think about the original Star Wars.

    I like the idea that your life could be like a real life adventure movie. That means, think of yourself like the protagonist.

    Certainly real life is like not like a movie but, we can technically we can try to think of it like it.

    For example if you were Frodo, would you just stay inside your hole and your hobbit hole? Or if you were Luke Skywalker, would you simply stay on Tatooine?

    Hero yourself!


    Hero Books?

    The original book of Enkidu. Or, the Iliad. Or the odyssey by homer.


    Now what?

    Create your own heroic future for yourself!

    Forward the power!

    If this gave you even one good or motivational part, feel free to forward this to a friend or family member!

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  • No sauce.

    All sauce is ultimately some derivation of sugar.


  • If It Ain’t Broken, Don’t Upgrade It.

    If It Ain’t Broken, Don’t Upgrade It.

    A thought:

    Perhaps when we are always trying to “over-optimize” and “improve”, we are actually becoming LESS productive, MORE distracted, and less effective.