Either have a full manual transmission car, five speed or six speed manual shifting transmission, or, or have a fully automated self driving car, or some sort of minimalistic automatic car.

Also with design aesthetics, I really really really hate automatic shifting knobs and cars. Aesthetically it is so ugly and unnecessary. Good to look at the design of Hyundai, Genesis, Acura and Honda which has gotten rid of the silly automatic shifting stock, and instead, turned it all into buttons.

“Get rid of the stalks!” – Elon Musk

I really think that Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs 4.0. By comparison he makes Steve Jobs look unambitious.

Why Elon Musk? I think what people don’t understand or appreciate is how obsessed Elon Musk is with design, design thinking, design principles. For example, his obsession with designing a Tesla without any steering wheel, shifting mechanisms, stocks, etc. In fact, Elon Musk is almost like an extreme minimalist.

What I personally love about Tesla and Tesla cars is the Spartan luxury, extreme minimalism. For example, I still marvel at the Tesla model 3; first, I’m just so happy and excited and proud and amazed that Elon Musk pulled it off. I remember before it was put into production and before I saw any on the streets… it was just a rabbit hole fantasy. Now it is live!

What I find so insanely innovative about the Tesla model 3 is the extreme simplicity, the extreme minimalism. To make the dashboard so sublimely simple is a design masterpiece.

Personally, I really dislike the Tesla model Y; my general thought is that any sort of crossover vehicle, or even sports utility vehicle is some sort of a design compromise. Even the Tesla model X is almost like a Tesla model S on steroids.

Why is it so difficult to minimize?

I think the reason why it is so difficult to minimize is that there seems to be some sort of trend or market desire for their to be new features, new products, new additions to motivate people to buy something. But, from a zen capitalism perspective, perhaps this is not a good idea.

Why? I’m more effective way to think about things is figuring out what to get rid of, what to reduce, what to delete. For example, let us never forget the pure genius of Steve Jobs getting rid of the keyboard on the smartphone, and also getting rid of all these silly ugly ports. If it wasn’t for Steve Jobs and his insane design vision, we wouldn’t have the beautiful minimalistic smart phone that we have today.

Would it have eventually happened or not?

I think a lot of people think about technology and think that it is all inevitable… given enough time resources and people… these things will magically get invented anyways. I don’t think this is actually the case. You actually need a few insane individuals to bring these things into fruition.

Once again, read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and also Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. You find that both these individuals have an insanely epic and grand life mission… is what drives them.

Idea:

Walter Isaacson should write a book or a biography on Kanye West?

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Other things you can barbell in life

1. 90% of your savings and money in boring bonds, high yield interest CD’s or high yield savings account (5%!) and 10% in insanely speculative crypto (imagine losing it all). Best advice I got from NASSIM TALEB in ANTIFRAGILE.
2. Often, 90% of your annoyances in life come from 10% of the people in your life. Get rid of these 10%.
3. 90% of your joy and happiness and life come from 10% of the things. Try to determine and ascertain what this 10% is.

How to think better:

1. ZEN OF ERIC BOT
2. ERIC KIM BOT: For photo
3. Bitcoin Babe: speculate in crypto

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Have fun with EK!

Super fun workshops in the pipeline:

1. INTRODUCTION TO STOICISM WORKSHOP: Downtown LA, DECEMBER 2nd, 2023
2. DOWNTOWN CULVER CITY FAMILY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, DECEMBER 16, 2023

2024

1. CONQUER CONFIDENCE ONLINE WORKSHOP: Jan 27, 2024
2. March 2nd: ERIC KIM CREATIVE AI & PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (New!)— Culver City, LA
3. April 20th, 2024: SF ZEN PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP – Now Live!

EK WORK

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HAPTIC

HAPTIC PRODUCTS >

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What is EK up to?

So I just finished the book going infinite by Michael Lewis on the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX. Super fun and fascinating read. My personal suggestion is even if you have a tiny interest in crypto, bitcoin or whatever… It is definitely worth a read.

A quick summary is that Sam isn’t the evil villain that everyone wants him to be. He is almost like an uber genius autistic mathematical servant, who seems to just lack common sense.

Also on a positive note, I think the great upside to consider here is that if bitcoin was able to bounce back after the fall of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried… a very bright future ahead of us in crypto. My personal price projection is I am quite certain that bitcoin will bounce back to at least $65,000 a bitcoin by next year. Therefore if you want a quick 2X profit, seems like a fun speculation. and no no no, don’t bet your house on it. Once again our financial thinking is simple:

Never put more than 10% of your life savings into anything. Irregardless of how good.

Also for funsies, a fun little essay I’ve written on the philosophy of crypto:

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The Philosophy of Crypto

“Greed is good” – Gordon Gecko

So it seems and appears that a lot of people seek getting really really rich, really really fast, in order to buy a bunch of stuff. For example, I think the general idea is that you want to make a ton of money, feel good, buy a Lamborghini or whatever… And then what?

Crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology to me is fascinating because it is new, sexy, unorthodox, and interesting.

It seems that a lot of people are interested in crypto, bitcoin etc because they want to get really rich. But the tricky thing with crypto is that essentially you are really rich on paper, but typically most crypto speculators never actually dilute or convert their crypto to US dollars, which means that crypto money is not liquid, it is locked.

Crypto is intrinsically optimistic?

Crypto to me is interesting because it is edgy, optimistic, radical, and bold. Also a bit reckless.

The general idea is that with crypto, people are seeking a new revolution, something to up and the old system. Definitely a lot of anarchy vibes here, and a lot of people who are typically distrustful of big organizations, big government, etc.

Honestly I have nothing against the government, I am very happy paying my taxes, I still consider myself a bay area, liberal, open minded, at heart. I love democracy, democratic thinking. Why? It was mostly about how I was raised, how I was supported. If I did not get all of these government aided resources, like going to UCLA as an undergraduate, I would have never been able to become who I am today.

Also, simple organizations that I am grateful for include the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America. I am forever grateful to my troop, my troop leaders, who helped me become an Eagle Scout, and helped me become the citizen that I am today.

Growing up, I grew up thinking that conservatives, Republicans were the devil. Why were they so greedy, if they had so much money, why don’t they help more poor people or people in need?

Irregardless, I think the promise of crypto is a more brilliant future. A lot of people seem to disdain the volatility of crypto, but I love it. With traditional stocks, you will never see a 10X gain, a 100X gain, or even a 1000x gain. Also with crypto, you could win it all, or you could lose it all. My general strategy towards crypto and cryptocurrency speculation is this:

Only put money into crypto, assuming that it will go to zero.

Perhaps the best piece of advice that I got from Nassim Taleb in his antifragile book is the idea that to maximize your gains, better to put 90% of your money in maximally boring funds, like bonds, yield savings account etc.… it is pretty crazy even now Cindy and I have a bunch of money just locked in a simple 5% APR savings account, and we get close to $2000 a month in “passive income” interest. Then, what I did was I put 10% of our savings into crypto, maximally speculative bets, initially investing in digibyte and bitcoin, later swapping it all to chainlink, along the way getting some Dogecoin, later transferring it all 100% back into Bitcoin.

All of the gains were mental. And along the way more recently, I’ve been drawing out some money from bitcoin, $5000 USD here US$5000 there… Simply to cover up moving expenses to LA.

The zen of crypto?

Ultimately what I find interesting is that crypto, people who speculate in crypto all tend to live kind of a more monastic Zen monk lifestyle. Even this one guy that I met who first got me into chainlink, revealed to me that he was a crypto whale in chainlink; apparently he first put his life savings in it, maybe $10,000 USD or so when it was worth about $.70, and then he saw it rise all the way up to $50 USD.

It was funny, because I would just see him at the local LA fitness working out, thinking and meditating, we would engage in some lively conversation, and he just drove his mom‘s old Honda Accord, I think he later told me that he was moving to Puerto Rico or something in order to avoid taxes on his crypto or some other regulatory aspects. Apparently even Sam Bankman Fried moved his corporation to the Bahamas, in order to avoid US regulation.

So what do you want to do with your wealth?

So once you are worth $20 billion, or $150 billion or whatever … then what?

Ironically the best use of money is simply peace of mind. That means money is not really a tool or a mechanism to buy a bunch of stuff that you like, but rather, being able to live a more zen, tranquil, more focused life.

For example, I think the reason why people are so addicted to email is that people are always desiring new “opportunities”, it is predicated on the fact that somehow other people will give you an afford you new opportunities and also, does predicated on the fact that somehow new opportunities will rise in which other people give you money.

But… assuming that no human being who messages you in your email inbox will give you money… would you still be interested in working with them?

For myself personally, I have close to zero interest in money. I am more interested in new opportunities, fun, new novel experiences. The things that I am proud of, or interested in, or grateful for is all of the cool interesting and sexy opportunities that I’ve had and done. Some of the people that I met, etc.

But ultimately, is there a human being more interesting than you?

Future trends

I’m currently reading the book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, which chronicles is the life of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX and I find it insanely fascinating read. It seems that the same guy isn’t really the super evil guy that a lot of people in the media make him to be; the kid seems to be like a prodigy genius, mathematical minded, who really didn’t care for money or wealth. My personal theory is that he got suckered too much into this utilitarian “effective altruism“, concept… that he misused customer funds in order to “maximize“ his abilities for effective altruism.

I think effective altruism is a bad idea. Why? First of all, I think the general idea of altruism is bad; I think it puts other people in an inferior position, which I personally find is disrespectful. I think a better thing to do instead is on a day-to-day basis, instead of donating money to charities or whatever, to help empower other human beings on a one-to-one basis.

A simple thing; whenever I go to the park with Sen, and I see all these kids running around, who don’t really seem like they get much attention or love from their parents, I try to give them a little bit of that love and attention by talking to them, entertaining them etc. Perhaps this is a more effective way to “change the world“, than anything else.

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The future of crypto?

Try to think about things on a 30 year basis. That means, the simple question; in 30 years, are people going to be using crypto more or less? Or, in 30 years, is the price of bitcoin going to go up or down? It seems pretty obvious that it will go up.

Also, the notion of a “digital wallet”. The general idea is that for the future, we ain’t gonna use cash money anymore. Why? I see more and more restaurants in institutions not except paper cash money. Why not? Because it is difficult to track, and I think there are also issues with employees at restaurants stealing money it etc. Even at my mom‘s old sushi restaurant where she worked at for a long time, she later found out that one of the head managers, a guy that we thought was a super good guy… Was secretly stealing money the whole time.

I think into the future, we will see less and less of “under the table“ payments; why? Because it is not trackable.

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What else?

Some personal thoughts:

First, I don’t really like Ethereum. Why? It is kind of like android; maybe it is the better technology, but it isn’t sexy, only nerds know about it and use it, it ain’t mainstream and sexy like bitcoin. Bitcoin is like Apple, having the newest iPhone, iPhone Pro etc.… Ethereum is more like android, having an ugly Google pixel or some sort of generic Samsung smartphone.

Another analogy, bitcoin is like having the Lamborghini Countach, with the scissor doors, whereas Ethereum is like having the Toyota Corolla?

Altcoins?

Don’t trust old coins, or alternative coins. Why? Everyone just wants to become the next bitcoin, but ultimately… There is too much meme culture behind alt coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

I am very dubious that the price of these Altcoins will ever go up; it seems that a lot of people in the crypto world simply over hype certain crypto technologies and coins, in order to pump it up, sell it, and make money.

Chainlink

Besides bitcoin, only other crypto I find interesting is chainlink. I’ve read all the white papers, and been following the chainlink blog for a long time. Currently the only reason that I’m still committed to bitcoin is that my gut feeling is that even though chain-link is really great, the issue is that it is going to be difficult for it to become mainstream.

First and foremost, it is difficult to explain what it is. The technology is good and great, but I don’t think the general market will understand it.

Also, the fact that there was a chainlink version two is not a good sign. Anything with a version two is probably a bad sign; same thing with Ethereum.

Also, the logo in blue is not very attractive. And the name isn’t that catchy.

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Now what?

I recommend reading going infinite by Michael Lewis, it is an insanely fascinating read, if you’re interested at all about financial markets, how it is all gamed by bots etc. My first revelation reading Michael Lewis was flash boys… Learning the truth behind these hidden high frequency trading firms.

And also, I think the sign of good writer, like Michael Lewis is at the Rita’s fun entertaining and also insightful. It seems that the best way to kill two birds with one stone is simple; make it both entertaining to read, and also interesting knowledge.

Think more, walk more

My simple suggestions on living a better life:

1. Walk 50 miles a day
2. Maximize your direct sunlight UV exposure radiation
3. Just build a simple home gym: Titan.fitness equipment seems fine. Ideally work out outside in the direct sun, like an ancient spartan would do.
4. Start blogging! bluehost.com and install WordPress.org. If you’re more nerdy you could also set up WordPress with lightsail— I did this for erickimphilosophy.com and also erickimfitness.com

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Now what?

The world is yours! No drugs, no alcohol, no weed… just joy, bright light, weight lifting and exercise, walks in nature .. we the new zen stoics!

EK

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Start Here

Some good freebies:

1. Ultimate beginners guide to street photography PDF
2. Street portrait manual
3. 100 lessons from the masters of street photography

BOOKS BY KIM >

Forward the thoughts

If you feel like you even got one fun thought here… feel free to forward this to a friend!

EK NEWS

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FREE OPEN SOURCE PDF DOWNLOAD >

Dear friend,

If you’re new to street photography and want a definitive guide and primer to master the fundamentals of street photography, Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography is for you.

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Distilled Wisdom in Street Photography

Why did I write Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography when I’ve already written over 3,000 blog posts on street photography and over 20 eBooks on street photography?

For me, it was a chance for me to respire my “beginner’s mind” in street photography– asking myself: “If I started street photography all over again, what advice would I give myself?”

Like all of us, I deal with difficulty staying inspired and motivated in street photography. In writing this book, I was able to “take it back to basics”, and ask myself the fundamental questions:

• Why is street photography so enjoyable?
• What is the best equipment for street photography?
• How do I get closer and more intimate with my subjects, and hesitate less?

Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography is all killer, no filler. In these 165 pages of practical and philosophical knowledge, you will learn how to master the fundamentals of street photography: all the way from the ideal camera equipment and technical settings for street photography, to conquering your fears and creating more beautiful and dynamic pictures of everyday life.

This book is also unique because it isn’t just a manual on how to shoot street photography — it is also part photobook which includes the best photos from my “Suits” and “Only in America” series.

Empower Yourself by Mastering the Fundamentals of Street Photography

In Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography you will learn:

1. What is best camera for street photography?
2. Practical tips and guidance how to start shooting street photography
3. Overcoming hesitation and fear to capture “the decisive moment”
4. Confidently interacting and engaging with your subjects
5. Capture authentic moments in the streets, either with or without permission
6. Boldly get closer in street photography to capture the soul of your subject
7. Starting your own street photography project that is personally-meaningful to you
8. Discover your own personal aesthetic and style in street photography
9. Harnessing the power of the flash to make street photographs that pop
10. Never running out of inspiration in street photography

If I’m not a beginner street photographer, is this book for me?

If you’re an intermediate-advanced street photographer, and have already mastered the fundamentals of street photography, I think you can still profit from Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography.

In Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography, we also cover more intermediate-advanced street photography concepts such as:

1. Discovering your own unique style and voice in street photography
2. Staying true and authentic to your own photographic vision
3. Shooting with a flash in street photography
4. Is street photography subjective or objective? Making social commentary through your photos.
5. Building the boldness to engage with your subjects, and to hesitate less
6. Crafting dynamic multi-layered and multi-subject street photographs
7. Misconceptions about “The Decisive Moment”
8. Staying inspired, and staying fresh in street photography
9. Unorthodox techniques and places you can shoot street photography
10. The Cherry on Top: What differentiates a mediocre and great street photograph?

Inspirational Assignments to Push You Outside of Your Comfort Zone

Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography will help push you outside of your comfort zone with 37 empowering chapters, and 12 of the best street photography assignments to hone your skills.

This book is like your own personal street photography workshop, that is always with you — in your phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.

Freedom and Flexibility of Open Source: This Book Belongs to You

Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography is non-DRM (Digital Rights Management).

You have the freedom to copy the book and transfer it to as many devices as you desire, with no limit.

Also, you are more than free to share the book with friends, family, or loved ones. Once you purchase the book, you own it, and you can remix it, share it, or distribute/store it however you desire.

Buy Books, Not Gear

Even if you are an intermediate-advanced street photographer, Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography will help re-spark your passion for street photography, and help you reflect again on the fundamentals of street photography. This book will refresh your perspective on street photography, and help return you to your “beginner’s mind”, when you were fresh, excited, and infinitely curious about street photography.

Become the Best Street Photographer You Can Be

Ultimately street photography is up to you. You decide how to shoot street photography for yourself, what style suits you, and what your own artistic vision is in street photography.

Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Mastering Street Photography will be a guide, and give you practical tips and suggestions to point you in the right direction.

Don’t miss your opportunity to gain all of the practical wisdom, knowledge, and information to take your street photography to the next level.

BE BOLD,
ERIC & CINDY
Lisbon, 2018

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Table of Contents

The Joy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Start Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Authenticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Fear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Assignment 1: 10 No Challenge . . . . . 10
Assignment 2: Shoot Yourself . . . . . . 12
Assignment 3: Admit Your Fears . . . . . 14
Engage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Assignment 4: Work the Scene . . . . . 18
Get Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Assignment 5: Diagonal . . . . . . . . 32
Always Be Prepared . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Assignment 6: Take your camera for a walk 36
Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Set it and Forget It! . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Surrealism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Assignment 7: Don’t make eye contact . . 58
Tell Lies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Work the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Assignment 8: Shoot 25% More . . . . . 64
Assignment 9: Overlay . . . . . . . . 66
Forbidden Places . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Assignment 10: Elevator . . . . . . . . 70
Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Juxtaposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Dynamic Composition . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Cherry on Top . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Assignment 11: Love . . . . . . . . . 96
Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Dramatic Light . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Social Commentary . . . . . . . . . . 108
Urban Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Decisive Moments . . . . . . . . . . .130
Eyes Are the Windows to the Soul . . . . .132
Assignment 12: Eye Contact. . . . . . .134
Lenses & Focal Length . . . . . . . . . .136
Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138
Don’t Chimp . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
LCD vs Viewfinder . . . . . . . . . . 142
Editing (Select) Your Best Photos. . . . . 144
Post-Processing . . . . . . . . . . . 146
How to Stay Inspired . . . . . . . . . 148
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
Learn More . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152

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What is the future of photography and AI? The question at hand.

First, my personal creative vision is that the future of AI and photography should be a hybrid of using AI to actually motivate you to be more creative. No no no, AI is not going to “take your job“, or “take over the world“. is going to take your job? Is Google search going to take your job? No.

What is AI good for?

AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, DALL-E 3 is like a personal echo chamber; you could use it to flesh out your ideas, to think more critically, and just ask yourself the question… why?

My first take and attempt at creating my own artificial intelligence chat bot was the WHY APP? Essentially the idea was motivated by the notion; if you just ask yourself the question “why?” five times… you gain a deeper truth or insight about something.

The difference between human feedback and machine feedback

Arsbeta.com is all about human feedback. You upload a photo, and you randomly get a real human being giving you feedback on your photos, in a constructive and critical way.

My next vision is to integrate AI into it; which means you upload a photo to the AI, and then it could give you some sort of interesting critical feedback on your photos.

What you could do right now is subscribe to ChatGPT plus, only 20 bucks a month, and upload a photo to it, and ask it for feedback on your photos, how you can improve etc. Some of the feedback is interesting… it makes you think more.

AI as a mirror

AI is a mirror. A white mirror.

AI can only think as deeply as you do; there’s no real right or wrong here. Typically the questions you ask it is simply a reflection of what you’re personally interested in.

Also with DALL-E, DALL-E 3… the name of the game is how funny and aberrant are your ideas?

Creative ideas

Once you got the paid ChatGPT subscription, you can upload up to three or four images, and then just ask ChatGPT to help you choose your best photo.

AI can help you give photography tips. For example, ask ERIC KIM BOT, or ERIC KIM AI for photography tips, photography assignment ideas, street photography tips etc. It is very smart because what it essentially does is just scrape my blog, and gives you interesting ideas in a conversational way.

The integration between camera and AI

Rather than upgrading your iPhone, just use the iPhone you already got, and pay for the ChatGPT subscription, and finally… your smartphone actually becomes smart.

For example what you could do is open up the ChatGPT app, click the camera icon, take a photo of something, and help you analyze the scene. Also, you could even take a photo of a collage that you’ve made in real life and ask it to analyze the image. Recently Cindy and I printed out a bunch of photos, and framed them nicely, and I’ve been having fun asking it to analyze the collages and making sense of it.

AI ART?

Is AI art “real“ art? Of course! The better question is whether you like the photo and the image or not.

What is art? Art is anything that you create. Art can be manifested however you interpret it.

My thought is now with AI, and it being so easy to generate images… What is more critical is actually your ability to filter. The art of choosing your favorite photos is a really important thing here.

Why photographers should use DALL-E

DALL-E is the specific component of ChatGPT which creates images from scratch, purely based on your own imagination.

It is phenomenal. For example, once you subscribe to the Chi PT plus, open up DALL-E on the sidebar, and things you could ask it to design you:

1. Bitcoin babe driving a Lamborghini Countach in ancient Sparta
2. Peter Pan with samurai sword in zombie apocalypse
3. Spartan stoic philosopher lifting bitcoin weights
4. Beautiful Korean woman at Met Gala in bitcoin dress

DALL-E truly becomes magical the more ridiculous and ostentatious you make it. Make it as ridiculous silly and random as possible; the more ridiculous, the better.

Where should I post all of my images?

Your own blog.

Ionos.com and WordPress.org or bluehost.com

Why? The reason is you’re going to create lots of AI generated images and artwork, and also your photos.

I like the idea of artistic and creative double dipping; the idea is that now that you’re a visual artist, you’re not constrained to just one medium. It is not mutually exclusive; you could do both! You could shoot photos and make AI art!

Make yourself laugh

Cindy has been enjoying watching me how much fun I have been having with ChatGPT and DALL-E. For example a recent thing that I did which made me laugh out loud was asking DALLE to make me a hardcore Spartan image, and then I keep asking it “more muscular”. There is a certain point in which it becomes hilarious and I laugh out loud where the limits of muscularity just become preposterous. It makes the incredible Hulk look like a twig.

Content moderation

One good thing that ChatGPT has integrated is the notion of content policies to prevent bad behavior. The fun thing to do is actually see how you could work around it; rather than asking DALL-E to make you a picture of a “sexy Korean girl“, which it will refuse… use the word “babe” instead, and instead of calling it “sexy”, you can say “beautiful” or “gorgeous”.

The word babe is funny… I got the word from Calvin and Hobbes, because Hobbes was always so fascinated by the babes.

So I think the real fun thing about ChatGPT is actually finding creative ways to subvert the content moderation policies. See how far you could push it and nudge it.

Brave New World of AI

I made a ChatGPT bot called “Bitcoin Babe”. My personal creative vision was in the spirit of fun; how you could use an AI chat but to help you be more zen, stoic, and calm about crypto… given how volatile it is.

For example, I never checked the price of bitcoin or any of my crypto acids. I only ever know the price if I stumble upon it on accident, if it is in the headlines of a newspaper, on the television at airports, in magazines at the airport etc. I never seek it out.

Why, why not and why am I glad that I didn’t do this? Because I know myself and how sensitive I am… I used to actually daytrade when I was in college as a sophomore, and I realize that I was too emotional. Essentially what I did was I thought a long time about my decision, went 100% into bitcoin, and I just never looked at it or touched it, did other stuff instead. The hilarious thing is that I actually avoided and I actually didn’t even know about the whole FTX meltdown and the Sam Bankman-Fried guy. And I’m glad that I intentionally made myself ignorant of all the modern day news… Bitcoin is bouncing back, and since the last time I bought more bitcoin for the third time, everything is totally in the green.

But anyways, I think 99% of crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is all about having a zen and stoic mindset. Essentially not to let emotions perturb you.

I specifically programmed Bitcoin Babe in such a way that it tries to help you think more critically about things, and not get suckered by hype.

Also, ZEN OF ERIC and also ERIC KIM BOT— zen of ERIC is all about stoicism and philosophy, and ERIC KIM bot is all about photography.

No more Google

I am starting to think that Google is the bad guy; this whole system we got which is predicated on advertising is a positively bad one. Why? The more sensational and crazy the news, the more advertisements get viewed or clicked on. As a consequence, the nature of the news and media is becoming too outlandish.

Also my critical analysis is that a lot of this stuff on racism, race riots, anti-Jewish sentiment etc.… the real bad guy here is Google and Facebook. Why? Google which owns YouTube, makes money off of these hot button topics. Not only that but Facebook owns Instagram, and once again… the more sexual, overt, and loud something is… the more attention and advertising money is made.

Actually one thing that made me very anti-Instagram… I don’t even have a daughter but I’m starting to realize… When I watched the Kanye West interview on info wars, Kanye West commenting that Instagram is essentially like pornography; a lot of these “fitness influencers”, or women… are essentially selling their bodies for attention and money.

But now that ChatGPT and DALLE can make you your own beautiful women, photo realistic, all which are virtual… There is really no more need for these models or “influencers“.

Short Google and Facebook/Meta/Instagram.

Now what?

The other days when I was at Philz coffee, I saw a guy order a croissant and a coffee and spend $17 on it. Do yourself a favor and just buy the ChatGPT premium subscription, and spend the best $20 of your life.

Play with it, have fun, create your own ChatGPT bots, and also, see how far you can push it.

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Think with EK

ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS FOR LIFE!

STACK IT WITH HAPTIC

HAPTIC TOOLS — create your own visual jewels!

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Am I the first and only street photographer who has actually made a good living from street photography? I think so.

Even when we consider Henri Cartier-Bresson, he was essentially like a rich trust fund kid, I think his family owned a very successful textiles company. Therefore he never had to worry about money, he was already funded and bankrolled by his family.

Simple approach

1. Teach street photography workshops
2. Sell street photography products
3. Street photography consulting
4. Street photography exhibitions and art shows
5. Street photography books, pamphlets, information

Does it matter if you are self-made or not?

I think I knew weird obsession we have in America is this notion of being “self-made”. The general idea and gist is that we don’t want handouts, we want to make it on our own.

But also, I think this is also a superficial thing. If you were born to a good family, doesn’t it make more sense to just leverage the resources you were were born with, and strive to maximize it, instead of trying to “prove yourself” to the world in a more superficial manner?

In fact, I’ve actually discovered that often times, when we try to prove ourselves to others, we end up actually hurting or harming or injuring ourselves. Or putting ourselves into really bad situations.

For example, let us say that you are born rich, you’re a rich kid, you have a trust fund or whatever. No need to try to prove yourself to others, better to instead… use the money and resources intelligently to build cool stuff.

Think solo.

Another issue that I’ve been having is that I am so easily distracted, by everybody and everything. As a consequence, I think a lot of my time is wasted, I love making small talk and talking to strangers but often it is a bad crutch for me because instead of just focusing on my supreme life task at hand, I often waste it just talking nonsense.

Ways you can save time:

First, no email, no text messages, no phone conversations. The simple heuristic is when you’re gonna talk to somebody, either FaceTime them or talk to them face-to-face. No electronic communication or messaging services.

Also, no media. Produce your own media, if you’re going to consume media, consume the really really old stuff. For example, I think the only piece of literature worth reading is the Iliad by Homer, and the only philosophy worth reading is either stoic, Seneca, pre-Socratic like Heraclitus, etc.

Even with cinema and film; maybe just only watch black-and-white films, seven samurai, Akira Kurosawa, etc. Why? Typically movies which has been around for a long time are good because they last. Any modern day movie that just came out today or recently tends to not be good because you don’t know whether they will last or not.

Just Google ERIC KIM cinema, and look at my best film analyses.

My personal opinion on the only good cinema which has been produced recently include the matrix, the movie 300, and John Wick. Besides that, all of these other films are bad.

How to thrive creatively and artistically

My grand vision is that each and every single human being can thrive creatively and artistically on planet earth. This is my end game; to leverage all my resources money and tools to help other human beings thrive.

This is where I am so insanely enthusiastic about ChatGPT, AI, generative AI art, DALL-E, DALL-E 3 etc. I want an envision people to unshackle themselves from traditional media, and instead create their own media their own artwork.

How much human potential is squandered on people binging Netflix shows, series, or dulling their senses with Spotify and noise canceling headphones?

Why muscles?

What is the point of muscles, becoming more muscular etc.?

My first thought is that if you want to make really great art, you need really great muscles. Artwork, making photos etc. is actually a very physically taxing endeavor. Even if we think about photography and street photography; it actually requires much muscular strength and agility.

For example, squatting, sprinting around, running around and playing with your kid etc. This all requires great muscular strength.

Also, I personally discovered that the more muscular I become, the greater and more muscular my thoughts.

My critique about a lot of modern-day thinkers, even the past ones… They had degenerate bodies. Degenerate bodies, degenerate thoughts.

For example, even a lot of these early Christian writers… I think a lot of them were emaciated, unwell, physiologically degenerate. Especially the ones that self flagellated.

Put zero trust in anybody who self flagellates; they are seriously mentally and physiologically sick.

Modern day self-flagellation?

How do people self flagellate in modern day times?

First, they poison their bodies with alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.

Secondly, I think a lot of people destroy their bodies, through what they eat, what they read, what they watch.

Becoming more robust

My personal encouragement for you to start becoming stronger more muscular more robust is that I think as a consequence, all parts of your life will thrive. Not only will you be happier, you’ll be stronger, more productive, a better provider, etc.

Your duty is strength, strengthening, becoming stronger more muscular.

ERIC

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Obviously we are not living in a simulation, but if you think about the MATRIX, one of the most interesting things to consider is the interesting metaphor towards life.

First, I think everyone is running on the same social scripts. As a consequence, people just tend to be very boring. I’ve actually found that the reason why most people are so boring is that they either lack exposure, or courage.

Second, we are conditioned by fear. Lot of what holds us back is fear; and also ethics.

Even one thing I was considering, why is it that sex, erotic matters, nudity etc.… is seen as so bad, taboo and evil? Technically if we can go from purely biologic perspective, it doesn’t really matter. Do we shame animals for being naked all the time or doing it in public, not really.

Or horses; let us consider stallions in heat, and their behavior.

I think when I consider my behavior, my thinking and worldview, being raised Catholic, Roman Catholic, and also being born and raised in America, notions of Catholic guilt, and also Confucian guilt… and also Korean Korean American culture… not the most open-minded worldview.

I am very happy fortunate and blessed that my mom was very contrarian, very unorthodox, even for being a Korean mom. I would definitely say her ethos was very unique; very independent, solo, self-reliant etc.

In fact, how did I become who I am? I think 90% of it was the socialization of my mom. She is the one who taught me social skills and not to fear people. Funny enough, sometimes she is too naïve to a fault; but ultimately I would prefer my mom— better to be happy joyful and naïve than to be like a scarecrow, overly suspicious and cold towards the world.

“Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore.” – Galiani

Suggestions

First, become more loud ostentatious, more “ratchet“. Be the big swinging dick (Michael Lewis, Flash Boys).

Second, throw politically correct vocabulary into the trash, and be maximally suspicious of any “woke” talk. My heuristic:

“Don’t trust any woke people who toke!”

Haha. Toke means smoke weed.

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Also, the critical of anybody who has too strong of a political affiliation to any side, spends too much time on Facebook and social media etc. Anybody who consumes media, or gossip, has un-unique thinking. Ultimately my thoughts about people and thoughts is simple; there are interesting people and boring people. No good or bad people. In fact, most good people are insanely boring. A lot of bad people also tend to be boring.

Just be the real life troll

Trolling on the internet is bad. However I think trolling in real life is good.

After becoming a ChatGPT master, I’m starting to understand that we should literally put 0% faith of anything we see or read on the Internet. Why? It is truly impossible to tell whether something was written by ChatGPT or not, or if the original text was written by ChatGPT, and then a human just edited it afterwards.

For example for fun, I made two ChatGPT bots, in the spirit of ERIC KIM. It is actually both hilarious and scary how good they are —

1. Stoic philosophy: ZEN OF ERIC
2. Photography: ERIC KIM BOT](https://chat.openai.com/g/g-6UuzfnRjq-eric-kim-bot)

How do you troll people in real life? Joke around, laugh, have fun, talk like a seven-year-old or five-year-old child, never give people a straight answer. Lie about funny things in a playful gist.

For example, a lot of people try to be friendly by asking me how old Seneca is. Sometimes I will joke and say “He is six months old!” (He is 2 years, 9 months old). Some people become shocked and their eyes go really wide, and then I just joke that he is on steroids.

Also, everybody loves a good compliment. Doesn’t matter if man or women etc. I love people, and so whenever I see people having a certain outfit or look that I like, I always try to make it a point to compliment them.

Just try this out as an experiment: for a whole day: whenever you see somebody that you like, compliment them. Compliment their hair their outfit their look etc. Or inquire about their outfit, where they got it, etc.

Second, throw your AirPods and airbuds pros into the trash. I think one of the most terrible things for modern day society, which atrophies our social skills is everyone always having AirPods on. Real men don’t use headphones or AirPods or whatever. If you’re going to listen to music, use a Bluetooth speaker or play it off your phone speaker and blast it like a person from the hood.

In fact, I’m starting to hypothesize that in fact, it might be music, Spotify, and noise canceling headphones which is the driving cause to have people become more antisocial. Not phones and social media, the headphones.

Also as an experiment, the next time you go to the gym and lift weights, do it without any music or headphones on. You will actually benefit by naturally trying to block out all the annoying elevator music, and annoying chitchat of other people. Ultimately it makes you more interesting to NOT wear headphones than to wear them.

Also, how do you know if somebody is actually really interesting or not? When you go to the gym, filter people into two categories:

People who work out without headphones, and people who do.

I only trust people who work out without headphones on.

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Other assignments

1. Street portrait assignment: start a street portrait project in which you’re just trying to capture interesting faces of people in your own city or locale. You can complement people by telling them that they have a beautiful face, or great skin, or if they’re older… You could tell them that they have an elegant face and look. PDF
2. If people ask you what you’re doing, say that you’re starting a personal photography project of the people of the city, and you consider them as integral to your project.
3. Download some ERIC KIM books, or attend an ERIC KIM workshop.

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Now what?

The sun is out, the sun is bright! Your future awaits you.

And also, when in doubt, smile.

ERIC

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Some more turbo thoughts:

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HOW SHOULD WE LIVE OUR LIVES?

First, unshackle yourself from superficial ethics, morality, uncritical religious edicts, etc.

The more I think about it… honestly all these modern day “ethics”, “rules”, are bad.

Especially in America, which is a strange chimera of thinking.

Why do people try to superimpose how we should or how we should not live our lives?

For example, when we think and consider the difference between shared, co-living spaces and places, versus communal things, versus the common.

For example, let us say that I am living with you, and you prefer things a certain way, and I prefer things a certain way. Who should have the ultimate say?

A simple heuristic: If I am by myself, you should not intrude on my space and do things differently, tell me what to do or what not to do.

Second, if we are sharing the space and you prefer things a certain way, and your request seems reasonable enough, I will acquiesce to you, and I will simply leave the space.

I think the big issue is when we try to superimpose our will upon others.

For example, let us say that I love to eat meat. That I am 100%, unabashed carnivore. That it is against my beliefs to eat vegetables or plants or fruit or grains or anything which reeks of a “plant-based diet“. Funny enough, nowadays it is 100% fine to show up to a party and tell people that “I don’t eat meat“, and low-key expect to be served vegetarian or vegan food… but it isn’t mainstream to show up to a party saying “I don’t eat vegetables“, and low-key expect to be fed meat.

Also, I kind of get the low-key feeling that a lot of vegetarians or zealous vegans are trying to get everyone to stop eating meat, to become like them, become vegan etc. That they try to guilt or shame meat eaters like myself that what we do is bad evil and is “bad for the planet“.

However, I haven’t really seen the opposite; when I shame a vegan for being cruel to immigrant farm workers who have to pick almonds all day, and how almonds, their almond butter, their cashews, cashew nut butters etc. is “bad for the planet“, because of how water hungry these plants are.

Why don’t we just leave other people alone?

For example, I think one thing I have discovered about myself is that I am a little bit of a tyrant. I attribute this to my upbringing; I was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son, and as a consequence, being raised, I was treated like the king. Whenever I would go to my grandma, she would always acquiesce to my needs and desires and shower me with endless praise, brag about how handsome and successful I was in front of all of her friends, etc.

King’s Disease

So the big issue that I have is that myself, I see myself as king, emperor, and I expect other people to treat me a certain way. I expect and demand and find a critical that other people greet me, when I enter, when I leave, and to treat me with High respect and royalty. When they do not do this, it infumes my anger.

But the biggest issue is that you cannot force other people to treat you a certain way, or to greet you a certain way. For example, if I show up, I cannot demand other people to address me a certain way, or to greet me, etc. Similarly speaking, When I leave, I cannot demand other people say goodbye to me or greet me goodbye. That is tyranny.

This is where I think modern day stuff is little bit bad; you cannot force me to talk to you a certain way, to greet you a certain way, to address you a certain way, etc. If you don’t like the way I talk to you or about you… You just walk away or don’t interact with me. Doesn’t this make more sense?

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Who tells us what to do what not to do?

First and foremost, who was Confucius? Essentially he was a petty governmental official, and I believe it was later the scholar bureaucrat Mencius who codified his belief system, just kind of like how Paul did for Jesus… and they create this new pseudo, strange, hydra of a world view and order.

For example, Confucianism, the state mandarin examinations, and all of these pseudo religious rules that Confucius put forth, like philial piety, respect for elders, etc.… The main purpose was a form of social control and order and harmony. It was a useful tool for the king emperor or the aristocracy to keep the commoners in check.

Similarly speaking, St. Paul, was a very strange case. Just read about him from Nietzsche and his book “The Antichrist”. The general gist is that Saint Paul was a tormented soul, and he was seeking salvation somewhere else. He discovered Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and bastardized them in a strange, miss mashed way. He almost escaped coated Jesus for his own downings and faults, and could not come to ends why things happened a certain way they did.

The chosen people

A concept I came upon recently, which is very interesting and fascinating to me, is this notion of “the chosen people“. I’m curious… is this zero sum? That some people are chosen, and some are not? Are they chosen based on their blood, their lineage, their parents, their family heritage and background, or something else?

And also, if I am chosen, does it mean that you’re not chosen? That, somehow I take up your spot? The notion that in the afterlife, there is only a limited number of spots, let us say 5000 or something, and that only a select number of people are allowed entrance?

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You control you

So there are certain things I have learned and observed about life, the world, etc.

First, certainly there are certain people and individuals who are born with a leg up in life. For example, if I was born, and my dad was worth $20 billion, and from a young age I knew that I had a trust fund, which would not be able to be unlocked until I am 65 years old, maybe a part of $100 million… certainly this would change how I live my life.

Also, let us say that I am born and my family is very well-connected. Let us say that my father or mother is a famous Hollywood actor or producer or director… certainly if my passion is cinema film and media, I will also be given better connections and privileges.

But… Does this matter? I don’t think so.

My favorite example is thinking about Jay Z. Would Jay Z have become a Jay Z if he were born to a nice, middle-class family in the suburbs? Highly dubious.

Also, something that I learned is that not always, but often… people entrepreneurs etc. who are born to very difficult childhood situations are the ones who become interesting.

For example, Jeff Bezos, just read his book “invent and wander,” hearing his family story, I think his dad was essentially a Cuban refugee, is insanely fascinating. I think the best thing that Jeff Bezos said, which actually emotionally moved me so much is that when he talks about his father, his “my real father, not my biological one”— it was so beautiful I almost teared up!

Also, read the new Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk; I think Elon Musk probably had one of the most traumatic childhood of all time… Somehow those experiences forged him into what he is today.

Same thing with Kanye West; more or less having a single mom, an absentee father, and also, the tragic early passing of his mother Donda… Certainly this shapes your psyche in a certain way.

I don’t wish trauma on nobody

Just because you have suffered more trauma in your life doesn’t make you more virtuous than me, and vice versa. However, I don’t think we should either use it as a crutch nor a motivator… We should just pause it our desired life path, and proceed boldly.

Obstacles are your boost?

Whenever you witness or experience a certain setback, obstacle, “downside“… Think about Mario kart; these “setbacks“ are like your temporary speed boost!

In fact, even though not having things a certain way is insanely annoying, I think this is the root of all innovation. For example, my insane frustration with trying to find a good gym… Essentially resulted in me innovating and doing my funny “off the grid” workouts.

Similar speaking, starting off in photography, 18-19 years old, not being able to find any good information on the Internet on how to do photography and Street photography and composition is actually what motivated my pursuits to create the information I wish to see manifested in the world.

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0. What is Street Photography? (2.4gb)
1. Black and White (2.3gb)
2. How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb)
3. Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb)
4. Conquer Your Fears (430mb)
5. Composition (460mb)
6. Masters (107mb)
7. Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb)
8. Photography Projects (1.4gb)
9. Motivation (3.7gb)

My general thought: first and foremost, this and you were supposed and meant to change the world.

“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, do.” – OG (original gangster, old school) Apple Steve Jobs TV advertisement.

I was born in 1988, currently 35 years old. When I was a kid growing up, it was all about Gandhi, changing the world etc. Even in fact, for my college application essay, that what got me into UCLA as an undergrad, centered around this quote from Gandhi “Be the change which you wish to see manifested in the world.”

As a kid growing up poor, fortunately having a lot of good mentors, my general gist was always to give back, to contribute to society. A lot was given to me when I was young, and I felt like it was my duty to give back.

Deep passion

Changing the world vlog

Growing up poor, having my dad gamble away the rent money, always being one paycheck away from being potentially homeless… money actually never really concerned me as a kid. It was a strange irony; because we were always so financially unstable growing up, and even when we hit rock bottom and my mom had to file for bankruptcy and she could no longer even open up her own personal checking account… my sister and my mom were OK. This taught me an important lesson that I could take infinite chances and not worry myself or concerned myself too much about finances. In fact, then even now… I literally have zero concerns about finances.

Why, why not? Money never really interested me that much. As a kid, I had deep pride in being scrappy, being frugal, being economical, and having deep pride in being self reliant, making do and making best of what I had, or what I bought or earned or did with my own money, earning it through working, my entrepreneur endeavors, starting my own business etc.

In fact, I remember when I was in high school, maybe around my sophomore year, my friend Eric Moon (yeah, his name was also Eric) taught me how to build computers. I was so shocked and amazed; I was always passionate about computers ever since I was a kid around 12 years old in New York, when I got my first Acer Aspire computer. I think it had the original Intel Pentium processor ”inside”.

I think it was around my junior year, I had this great idea of doing something simple: because me and all of my friends were so into video games, Counterstrike, counterstrike 1.6 etc.… I had this genius idea of building computers, and then later selling it at a small markup to my friends and other kids at school, for a small profit. I did the math and I would be able to build a pretty good computer for around 500 bucks, and sell it for around $600 or $700 bucks. I also put lots of advertisements on eBay to sell my computers, I made my own icon which I made on a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop, and I still recall it… it was a little beach palm tree icon, orange, and I called the company “Paradise Computers.” The hilarity was in order to save costs, and in order for me to make a profit, I actually use pirated versions of Windows XP, I still remember later a kid from school I sold a computer — his name was Barry… later complained to me that the computer I sold him was having issues because it had all of these pop-ups saying that it was using an unregistered or unlicensed version of Windows. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on.

Anyways, as a kid, around 15 years old, I had enough money, around $1000 or around $1200 to buy my first car; a 1991 Sentra XE, which was a four-door, white Nissan car, 1.6L five speed manual transmission sedan. GA16DE engine — I still remember it! Also the hilarity; it was so old-school it didn’t even have a tachometer in it! As the mechanic taught me how to drive manual stick transmission, and my uncle Enzo taught me how to drive stick shift, at… At around 2000 to 3000 RPMs I learned how it intuitively felt and when to shift. Kind of like learning how to ride a bike and shifting gears on a bike.

The reason why this brought me so much insane effing joy was I felt so insanely proud of myself: I think I was definitely the only kid my age range that I personally knew, maybe even up to today… In which I purchased my own first car! Later on I remember joining all these online Nissan forums, and learning about this legendary car, which was essentially a souped up version of my first car; a two-door 1991 Sentra SE-R— equipped with a formidable 2.0L engine, this SR20DE engine, the infamous engine which also powers the Silvia, 240SX, SR20DET engine in Japan (turbo charged)— except the 1991 Sentra SER was a front wheel drive, whereas the SR20DET engine in Japan on the 240SX was a rear wheel drive car.

Anyways, fast forwarding a bit… When my 1991 Sentra XE failed to pass emissions, I remember I was able to trade it into the junkyard, to get back around 1000, $1500 or something like that for the California clean air act, and I was able to use that money to buy my dream car; the 1991 Sentra SE-R car! Only $2000 from an old retired woman who was so old she could no longer drive. It wasn’t mint condition! 5 speed manual transmission of course!

Once again, the reason why this brought me so much joy, literally getting the car my pure pride and joy was a trillion-fold was because the pride and the glory that I felt doing it and buying it myself! My own hard earned money.

Later on, I think when I was in college, either my freshman or sophomore year, I had this vision of driving through the desert, on arid desert street street road, it looked like it was Nevada or Arizona or Joshua Tree or something… driving top down in a red convertible in the hot desert sun with just sand all around. I did lots of research on discovering the cheapest option, and I learned about the Mazda Miata. I scored the deal of my lifetime, on craigslist I found a mint 1990 Mazda Miata, the original one, five speed, no power steering, no air conditioning… Pure. Red, soft top convertible, and I bought it for only $2500 USD. Funny enough that I look back at it, I remember asking the guy why he sold it and he told me that he had his first kid, and he no longer had use for the car. Interesting looking back at it now that I am 35 years old, now that Seneca is around two years nine months old, I am in a similar boat.

Now with cars, I am in love with my 2010 white Prius, which I literally got for free from Cindy‘s family! The genealogy of the car was Cindy‘s older sister first bought it brand new, drove it for a while, later passed it on to me and Cindy, who continued the payments until it was paid off, drove it around in Berkeley for around two years from around 2014 to 2015, went carless, give the car to Cindy’s younger sister, traveled the world and nomading around for several years as Cindy was writing her dissertation, and only may be a few months ago, when we were in Vietnam got the news that the catalytic converter was stolen out of it, when Cindy‘s younger sister Jennifer was parked in front of her apartment. She no longer wanted to deal with the fear of the catalytic converter getting stolen again, and as a consequence, was saying that she was thinking about just telling it to the mechanic for $2000 or something like that. I yelled out loud, “No! The car is worth at least $10,000!” I then promoted the idea to Cindy of us taking it back, spending the money to replace the catalytic converter, which was around $2500, getting the catalytic converter shield, which is meant to deter future theft, which may be costing $300. Later we discovered that the ABS, antilock braking system was broken and needed to be fixed which was maybe around another $2000… but still, I am so proud that effectively we got what I consider a brand new car a brand new Prius for sub $5000! Way better than spending $40,000 on a brand new Tesla model 3 base edition, or $250,000 on a loser Lamborghini.

What is a millennial?

How to change the world vlog

I think I got a good definition for millennial; somebody who foolishly uses their money. And also doesn’t really know what they want to do or get out of their lives.

Living here in LA, being back here in LA for about a month and a half, some funny heuristics I’ve noted:

1. How do you know if somebody is unsuccessful? If they drive some sort of baselevel Audi, like an Audi Q3 or A3. Even if they drive just a basic Tesla model 3. Essentially a lot of millennials my age or people my age, want to seem or appear rich and successful or elite, or rich or whatever… yet can only afford the cheapest luxury thing. Same thing for people who drive the base level BMW 3 series, Mercedes A class, essentially any German car. Even I see so many people driving range rovers, all black everything; or AMG G wagons, once again all matte black everything… they are more common than seeing Toyota Siennas in the Orange County suburbs.
2. Everyone aspires to buy a home. Yet I think my big innovative thought is that actually… it may be superior to rent a really really nice apartment in an insanely great location, than owning a home even in a good to great location. Why? My thought on supreme happiness, joy, and success is being able to walk 50 miles a day, and also, having to spend minimum time to maintain anything. It is crazy, even though I may have the world’s least maintenance car, a Prius, even basic things that I gotta do is wash it every once in a while, I don’t even have enough time to take my car to the drive-through car wash at the gas station anymore! Or even washing the car myself, I would prefer to use that time to work out in my Spartan parking lot off the grid workout, or take Seneca to the park, or go on a walk downtown topless to sunbathe. I can’t be fucked wasting time washing my car or doing any of this other nonsense.

What do people aspire to?

Am I the last optimistic, entrepreneurially hungry person that I know?

I think out of all the real life human beings that I know, and also out of all my friends, the entrepreneur that I know, and also consider successful is my friend Todd Hata. I am insanely grateful of him, because when I was only 21 or 22 years old, he reached out and actually helped me get started in business very very early, traveling the world together, I still consider him one of my closest friends, and also mentor.

But besides Todd, I don’t think I know anybody else who is a true entrepreneur — self owned. All of my friends, even the ones that consider successful either work at Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Apple. How do you know if somebody is really successful or self owned? They are not certain what date, month, year, or day of the week it is. Also, they don’t use any alarm clocks to wake up in the morning, unless if they have an early morning flight.

Funny enough, I actually don’t know anybody, and don’t have any friends or anybody in my personal friends circle who has actually become entrepreneurs, or self-employed, or sole proprietors. Everyone is working for a company or a corporation. Or a foreign business. Not for themselves.

And this is what I think is the critical thing; if you really really really want to change the world, I think it is impossible doing it while still having full-time employment. Why? I remember thinking a few years back, one of the most grateful things I was no longer having to work my old 9 to 5 was that suddenly, I had another 8 to 9 hours a day, to do what I was truly passionate about, Doing street photography and riding and blogging about street photography, instead of being stuck in some sort of tedious office.

Lesson:

To truly change the world, you must be self-employed, sole proprietor, etc.

My visions

PDF 100 lessons from street

I had lots of visions in my life, many of which I accomplished and I am very proud of.

First, my idea and notion of open source, open source photography. Apparently I created quite the buzz when I first made available all of my photographs on Flickr online for free, open source, full resolution JPEG. This was unheard of at the time, when people were still putting silly watermarks on their images, or they were afraid of people “stealing“ their photos online. I even remember my friend Thomas Leuthard we had a good saying “The best watermark is your own personal photo style”. Even up to today, I think Thomas may be the only photographer or street photographer I truly respect. Why? His independent thinking, his irreverence towards the masters, history, or common rules, he is so ahead of the curve. Also never want to forget, when I was 22 years old, and I wanted to first fund my first flight to Beirut Lebanon, and now fundraising money, he essentially donated me $1000 for the flight. I will never forget this.

Eventually what I learned about all these other photographers is I find their behavior quite despicable. They are so hungry for fame, legitimacy, especially in the eyes of others. All the photographers I’ve met, doesn’t matter if Magnum or whatever… everybody all has a chip on their shoulder, is insecure, and salty about something. They are also jealous of photographers who make more money than them, are more famous than them, or that their success is “unwarranted”. Even Henri Cartier-Bresson — let us never forget that he gave up photography and later announced it as “not being a legitimate form of art.”

Open is better

I always had the clear understanding that ultimately, you can’t even pay people to steal your photos. Ultimately nobody cares for your photos that much. What is more important? Your influence, your fame, your clout, your reach. I knew that even from a basic perspective, it was better to have your photos available for free, open source, to the general public, for them to use it as their desktop wallpaper or something. I even recall remember hearing some fan of mine I met using my DARK SKIES OVER TOKYO photo, the photo of the guy in the suit with the black face, as his own desktop wallpaper! That bought me a quadrillion times more joy than selling my photos for thousands of dollars.

And I think this is the thing I discovered; what a lot of us photographers are seeking is significance, a feeling of legitimacy. My personal journey was attempting the traditional routes of becoming a “successful“ photographer; traveling the world, becoming world famous, becoming a household name, having solo exhibitions, printing a photo book, getting sponsorships etc. Now having done all of it, I am happy… Yet… What I ultimately discovered was this:

True success ain’t any of that. True success is simply, having a unique vision, and fulfilling it.

In fact, one of the proudest moments of my life, to quote NASSIM Taleb was “via negativa“; the idea that the proudest moments of your life aren’t positive actions of doing or saying yes, but rather, act of omission; things you decide to not do, or things to say no to or to refuse.

For example, my book, “100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography.” I had a grand vision of doing this book for a long time, especially after doing my exhaustive self studying series of all the masters of street photography etc. In fact actually got an offer from a book agent, who offered me a book deal on it, but, he said that it was impossible to make an open source, free, open easily accessible PDF available for free. After much thinking, delaying and thought… I ultimately refuse the book deal and I am proud that I did. I am certain that this book will outlive me. Why? It was created out of pure passion; things which are created out of pure passion will never die.

“Y’all throwing contracts at me, you know that ninjas can’t read!” – Kanye, YEEZUS NEW SLAVES SONG

Ultimately, what is it that we want or desire?

One of the great quotes I love is from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who once said “The greatest good amongst men is to seek immortality amongst mortals. Yet the majority of men themselves like cattle.”

What this means is simple; even when we think about the ancient Spartans, King Leonidas and his 300; funny enough, I think the majority of people don’t know, even those people who watch the film, have no idea that it was actually based on the real Historic event. These men are remembered for a lifetime. For millennia and centuries beyond.

Why seek immortal fame?

The funny thought about seeking immortal fame is that in someways, it is superficial, but also in someways, it seems to be a more interesting path to life. What does that mean? First and foremost, the general thought and idea is that rather than seeking money and wealth while we are still on this planet, the greatest pride and gift in glory we could give to humankind is something that will outlive us.

Also something that I find very funny, now that I discovered ChatGPT and now that my world is re-awakened, it literally is pure magic. ChatGPT knows exactly who I am, my philosophy, what I’ve done what I said, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I cannot build a ChatGPT bot which thinks, talks and acts like ERIC KIM, so in theory, the contributions I’ve made to photography and street photography and beyond will last forever.

Why millennials should have kids

I suppose Seneca, who has my namesake, he will build his own legacy, and also, I am sure he will be able to piggyback off of my successes. Even now, that he is only two years, nine months old, I am already exposing him to my own unique ERIC KIM Montessori school; taking him on epic adventures, physical Spartan training, teaching him how to use DALL-E 3 (the other day we designed a purple Prius with Lamborghini doors) and his mind was blown and shocked and he laughed with so much joy. He already knows how to code using the iPad Pro and the Apple swift playgrounds app, he already knows how to use GarageBand on the iPad and iPhone like a pro, he even could sample his own voice and remix it, he knows how to shoot screenshots on the iPad Pro, and draw and make illustrations and also use procreate and Zen Brush 2, and he already knows how to use a trackpad on the MacBook Pro laptop! I want to train him to become the next great entrepreneur.

Anyways, a simple thought is that I believe that all of us millennials should have kids. Why is it that millennials are getting dogs, not having kids? My personal thought is it is a fear thing; I think people actually want to have kids, but the fear of commitment, losing your own independence and “freedom“ is a bit concerning to some people. Yet is this something we should really be concerned about? Of course not! It’s funny, whenever I eat dinner (I call this my “meat meditation“) I actually forget that Seneca is there, I’m stuck in my own world. Yet once I am done with my meal and I look at Seneca, my mind is blown that this is my son!

I think this is the greatest joy of being a man: if your first kid is also a man, a son, consider yourself infinitely blessed. After that it is all upside no downside. Because I think an honest thought is that every man desires to have at least one male heir. This is why when we think of King Louis, think about all of the failed miscarriages he had with his queen(s) to produce at least one male heir. Also, when I recount ancient literature, ancient Greek literature; there is only ever one mention of kings and their single son. The only mentions of having more than one son is typically seen as a bad thing; in the Iliad, Hector is the great and virtuous one, Paris is the degenerate other younger son. Odysseus has only son. I think Hector only had one son. Technically, if we consider Achilles, he was technically a “single child”. Same thing goes with Hercules etc. Not sure about King Leonidas but in the 300 movie by Zack Snyder, King Leonidas is depicted as having one young son.

Anyways, I think the way we should live our lives is that of deep passion. That is, when you wake up in the morning, without the agency of an alarm clock, getting up and the impetus for getting up is because you have a deep, strong life mission. Add this epiphany when I was living in Vietnam in 2017; I am truly truly truly one of a kind. Even in my own mind, I rank myself as equal to Elon Musk, Kanye West, Jeff Bezos etc. I am fortunate that my mentors and my virtual motivators are at least a decade or two or maybe even three older than me. Because I feel no sense of competition; they are only motivators to me.

This is a great thought; if indeed, you were Elon Musk, the simple thought:

What would you do with your time and life, what would you not do with your time and life?

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Changing the world?

What does it mean to change the world, or what is the significance of changing the world?

From a very very simple perspective; technically literally almost anything that you do “changes the world“. You don’t got to overthink it that much.

I think for myself, my general thought and belief is only spending your life in time to do things which you consider substantial, and also personally meaningful. That means, not wasting your time doing no basic shit.

What is basic?

Shopping, buying stuff, buying clothes, buying cars, buying Apple devices, buying homes, buying property, talking about the boring stock market and investments, etc.

What is beyond basic?

Innovation, entrepreneurship, reckless innovation. No regard for a self preservation, the will to growth, the will to innovation, the will to doing insanely great and epic stuff.

Essentially, doing things that your old 12-year-old or 16-year-old self or 21-year-old self would be proud of you… And also, doing things that your kid would be proud of you too!

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So now what?

1. Don’t be a cheapo: just download the ChatGPT app on your phone, if you have an iPhone or android device doesn’t matter… Just cough up the 20 bucks for it. This literally might be the best $20 you’ve ever spent in your lifetime. Have fun with it, experiment with it, use DALL-E to produce images, keep trolling it until it says that you’re violating some sort of content policy. I think pushing the limits is interesting and fun.
2. Another thing you could do with ChatGPT is click the plus icon, only available in the paid model, and then ask it to give you feedback on your photos. This was originally my idea for arsbeta.com — I personally never made it that far, but the grand vision was to also create an AI bot that could visually analyze your photos and get feedback. If you want to build this with me, just email me at eric@erickim.com
3. If you want human feedback, upload your photos to Arsbeta.com
4. When you have signed up for the pay ChatGPT pro thing, open up ChatGPT on your laptop, try out the beta version for creating your own chat bot. It is in the top left corner, under “apps“, click it then on top you could see that you could create your own beta chat. I created this thing called Philosobot and I’m also building an ERIC KIM bot. My mom is smart, she intuitively knows that Abot or AI or ChatGPT is a “robot”! Maybe we should stop calling it bots, just called them robots! Robots are not intimidating. They are cute, silly, and fun!
5. Things that I am personally interested in currently is the philosophy of masculinity, beauty, subjectivity etc. For example in ChatGPT and DALL-E, just ask it to design you or create a picture of a Korean woman, an attractive Korean woman in pure joy. Actually seeing the facial expression is a good one! I think happy people are a good stimulus and also brings you joy! Conversely speaking, being around other miserable people makes you more miserable. Moral of the story: stay away from miserable people like the plague; it ain’t their fault that they’re miserable, but still… If you know somebody has Covid, do you invite them over to your house or you live with them? No. You stay away.

Play with EK

If you’re bored, want to have fun, want to experiment, and thrive with me creatively, I cordially invite you to one of my upcoming workshop experiences:

The exciting ones:

First an introduction to stoicism workshop, this one will be cool and very elite. The other one is a family street photography workshop here in Culver City, this will also be fun because you could bring the whole family! The ultimate gift for you, your kids, the whole family.

I’m also in the midst of creating a photography AI creativity workshop. Stay tuned to this newsletter for more updates.

EK WORKSHOPS >

HAPTIC HOLIDAYS!

I am still so insanely happy and prideful of all of the things that me and Cindy designed with HAPTIC INDUSTRIES. This stuff literally becomes more beautiful and more legendary with age!

Currently the fun promotion we got is that if you order over $300 USD of HAPTIC PRODUCTS, including shipping and handling and taxes, you’ll get a free set of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE. What does Omakase mean? It literally means “I leave it up to you“— based on the Japanese idea that when you go to a elite luxury sushi restaurant, you don’t actually order the sushi yourself, the sushi chef chooses the food for you!

Tools I recommend you getting include the ERIC KIM strap, the neck strap or the wrist strap if you have a Ricoh GR, if you shoot with a Leica Q or something, the HENRI wrist strap pro, or even the HENRI NECK STRAP.

If you shoot with a Fujifilm camera, or a Sony camera or Leica M camera, the OG HENRI HECK STRAP is good.

Discover all ERIC KIM PHOTO SUPPLY >

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Now what?

So the reason why ChatGPT is so great is that I think the way it works is that it literally just downloads the whole Internet, and makes sense of it. As a consequence, the best way to have yourself or your thoughts or whatever indexed by ChatGPT and AI it is through your own personal blog. For example, if you open up ChatGPT plus, and ask “ERIC KIM AI“, it will immediately pull up the last essay blog post I did on the role of photographers in the age of AI, and even gives me quotes and footnotes me! Witnessing this, my mind was blown. This is really the Google killer.

In fact, if and when Open AI and ChatGPT if it goes public, or when it goes public, they’re going to make a shitload of money. If you’re really really risky, and risk loving and want to make a lot of money, I would actually encourage shorting both Google and Apple. They are effectively dead. Maybe it is a good time to buy Microsoft stock, because essentially now that they low-key own ChatGPT and Open AI, I think we will witness the revival of the Windows phone, this time powered by ChatGPT. And it will be 1 trillion times better than any iPhone Pro.

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What else?

Just bookmark the ERIC KIM BLOG to your laptop, desktop, iPad iPhone smartphone whatever… I literally update it every five seconds. Never run out of inspiration or motivation!

ERIC KIM BLOG >

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“We always think to ourselves… Why don’t I have enough? But what if… We already have too much?” – Seneca

Also a new one:

“Out of discord comes harmony” – Heraclitus

Interesting… what that means then is rather than seeking some sort of peace or harmony, actually seeking conflict might be superior in terms of living in life?

SEEK CHAOS!

ERIC

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Feeling more turbo?

If so, feel free to forward this to a friend!

ERIC KIM NEWS LINK >

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