One of the best nights of sleep of all time… Eating a pound of beef liver, cooked perfectly medium rare, a bunch of why you ground beef from Costco, 70/30, I think hitting the socket around 7:30 PM, waking up at 7:30 AM, wow, that 12 hours of sleep? Anyways I feel reborn.

January 31, 2025… My 37th birthday! Wow, seeing it in type looks really big. Maybe I’ll be stuck at age 36, or 26, or 16 forever.

Anyways, towards my Zen training, I think a very very simple way to start life is when you wake up first thing in the morning, take your shower your bath whether hot cold or both whatever… And then when you start drinking your morning coffee tea, or maybe both, to just resist the distractions of profits loss, gains or whatever… To essentially have a practice of not exposing yourself to any information in the morning first thing in the morning, whether good or bad. This also includes checking Twitter, any news or social media, your financial accounts, your stock your bitcoin etc. 
If anything, the true ideal way to start the day is with your iPhone totally off, perhaps charging in the living room outside, off. And on top of that, if you need an alarm to wake up, just buy a standalone alarm on Amazon or something, to wake you up.

The worst way to start the day is checking your iPhone for email and notifications text messages etc.… The best mind is a fallow mind, the best mind is an empty mind. 

Why?

My thought is that with an empty mind, anything and everything can come in. With an empty mind, you let the vibrations of your own mind your own life experiences be the stimuli to strike new ideas within you.

Considering that we are all philosophers, yes you too, even Seneca at the age of four, he is already asking me a lot of questions on why things are the way it is in Korean, “weh?” The most beautiful three letter word in the English language! Why?

I think it’s hard because even now… Making it big, I’m starting to even rethink some thoughts about wealth. Practically and metaphorically I retired in 2017, when we are paying $320 a month in rent in Vietnam, and essentially Cindy and I were in a position in which I realize, we would never run out of money. Even though we ate out every single night, we’re at coffee shops all day… Our income even our “passive income”, far outstripped our expenses.

certainly things changed a lot since moving to LA, in which living expenses have gone up by a factor of 10 X, now our rent is $3200 a month, and also the cost of food due to inflation has gone up by at least 2X, beef ribs at Costco are now $5.50 a pound, whereas at the Costco business center even maybe three years ago it was only $1.99!

Anyways, certainly it is difficult to 10 X your income, leverage is difficult. But perhaps if you put your family on a bitcoin standard, you can get there.

Why 10x

My personal thought is let us say that bitcoin is like roughly $100,000 a bitcoin, what that then means is if you think ahead enough, when bitcoin hits $10 million a bitcoin, assuming that you are spartan with your money and not foolish, that means that easily, you could 10 X and 100 X your money from here. 

So let us say that you’re being paid $20 an hour, that means that actually you’re being paid $200 an hour, or better yet, $2000 an hour assuming you know how to save in bitcoin.

I had this thought maybe about three or four years ago, thinking about my friends who worked at Amazon etc., if you took your good tech salary, and just converted all your currency into bitcoin, you would have been able to retire at least five or six lifetime ago.

Now what

So it looks like the great shakedown is starting. But that then means is real life has hit the pan, and moving forward, life will only continue to become more extreme, more of volatile, more crazy.

And I actually had a thought… The reason why we new Spartans, we new Stoics, we new bitcoiners are doing so well is that actually, I think there is almost like kind of a natural selection bias which is happening here;

Those who can tolerate the most volatility, shall thrive the most.

Bitcoin will continue to be volatile, forever. And I think that’s the whole idea; those who cannot tolerate harness or even love volatility, cannot thrive. 

Living in a more extreme volatile world

Let us fast forward a bit, four years from now, 2029, when Trump is out of office. Don’t be shortsighted; no no no, there will not miraculously be some sort of savior liberal Democrat who comes in, “fixes“, or reverses everything. I think time and reality is like a one-way ratchet; when you crank up the volatility of real life and time in one direction, you cannot reverse it. 

For example, no no no, bitcoin will not drop down to $10,000 again. Or $6000, or $1000 or $100 of bitcoin. This is not how physics or thermodynamics works. 

For example, you cannot have water flow upstream, no matter how hard you may believe in it.

Bitcoin is physics

I think the hard thing for people to understand is the reason why bitcoin is such a paradigm shift is that it is the first bridge between the virtual the cyber and the real.

For example the whole notion of proof of work, the whole idea that you actually have to use real life and energy in the real world to produce, create, and mint a bitcoin, or even secure it, is a feature not a bug.

It’s kind of like producing another human life, having a child. The truth of the matter is if you want to birth a child, you need a “proof of work” in the real world, in real reality.

For example, you need a female mother, you need a male sperm, and you need the incubation phase, you cannot rush it, the mother must consume deep nutrition, you must birth the child.

And when the child is born, obviously you must nurse the child, feed the child, raise and care for the child.

You cannot digitally clone a child, or digitally birth a child, which is kind of like the whole idea behind “proof of stake”. 

Even life if you think about it, a human life, the reason it has any worth is that it is finite. Even if you had all the money and power in the world, you cannot as a man live more than probably around 122 years, certainly you cannot live 130, 150, or 1000 years. Even from a philosophical perspective — I don’t even like the idea of living that long.

Even if magically somehow we did invent something that allowed us to live to be 1000 year old, with a 26 year old body and a six pack… I think there’s a certain point in which you would just want to pull the plug. And not have to do it yourself.

Anyways, why is the mind so valuable?

First, I think raising Seneca, has been one of the most valuable and most precious things of all time. And, it has taught me more about philosophy and human nature more so than reading thousands of pages of philosophy.

For example, a simple observation; typically children never have to carry a backpack, a side pouch, anything in their pockets. Or their hands. As a consequence, they’re always running around! A child is never still and this is a good thing.

Also, a practical one; most children assuming that they’re under the age of four, do not carry an iPhone in their front pocket.

Let us see that the downside of having an iPhone or a phone in general is that once you pull it up and use it, typically it stops your movement. If you have an iPhone in your hand and you’re looking at it or working on it or checking something or reading something or listening to something, you’re not also doing a backflip.

As a consequence, a child has the ultimate mind; 100% free, present in the present moment.

If you think about it, what that that means is that a child is actually an ultimate zen master; a child is fully experiencing reality in the present moment, not thinking about the past or the future.

Certainly a child has memories; for example Seneca still remembers our experiences in Hong Kong, and that the 973 bus from Tsim Tsa Tsui (TST) takes us back to our hotel in Sai Ying Pun. And he remembers the colors of the metro lines, the blue one and the red one.

yet he doesn’t really “dwell” on the past. He is fully in the present moment, taking our Amazon boxes, asking me for tape, and creating trains of his own, connecting it to his cart, and training his constructed train all around the house.

Or he will take the expo dry erase marker marker eraser, and fly around the house like an airplane, not thinking of “utility“, or other things like that.

Even when you observe a child playing, climbing structures they’re not thinking about anything else, they’re just enjoying the climb!

How and when and why do adults get corrupted? 

They not like us!

I think one of the things which is the most shocking to me as a father having a firstborn son is that if you think about it… As a man, assuming that you have a child your first child is your son is a boy is a man, the heir to the throne, you should consider yourself blessed 1 trillion X.

Whenever you see families with three girls, no boys, you know what they were shooting for.

So this whole notion of a absentee father to his son is a very very bizarre thing. Once again, to me, even if you could take all the trillions of dollars on the planet, nothing in the whole universe is more valuable than my son. Or my relationship to him.

And this is where I think it is wise to hedge your influences from philosophers thinkers, or even zen monks who have never had a child, they may theoretically understand child’s mind, but until you have actually raised your own child, you shall never know. 

Not only that but until a man has had a son, man shall never know.

Why does this matter?

On the flight from LA to Asia, I finally had the privilege of finishing the Odyssey by Emily Wilson, excellent. In fact I’m starting to read all of her translations, even including the tragedies of Seneca.

One of the biggest ideas is Odysseus, his relationship to his son. Also what’s interesting to me is I just came to discover that actually, even though I had no idea, I guess Achilles also had a son?

Anyways, how then this becomes interesting to be is that in America at least, and in the west, we are trying to think that this whole notion of a nuclear family, husband and wife, at least two kids, white picket fence, etc. But if you think an ancient Greek times, Kings had like 10 to 20 children, I think even one of the funniest stories of Hercules is that he was somehow able to impregnate like 50 daughters of this one king?

Anyways, I say don’t stop trying. If you’re a man, try to birth at least one son. And even if you cannot, that’s OK, most likely your daughters will one day birth a son and you’re fine. A grandson having a grandson is like the same as having a son. 

Goals

So then, proceeding in our life, what is our goals?

First, certainly philosophy is a noble goal. To spend your life pioneering thoughts, ideas concepts etc., that will benefit you your wife your kids, the future of the human race is a noble impetus to life.

Even now that I think about it, I feel like I have lived at least 10 lifetimes, and I am so grateful.

In moving forward, certainly everything in life is an ululation, and that is great!

Some current thoughts:

1. How to inject more of volatility in your life, assuming that the more volatility you have in your life, the “more” better your life.
2. What is better, to have $1 million of bitcoin, or $1 million of micro strategy stock?
3. New thoughts on fitness exercise weightlifting, etc.?
4. New modes of living thinking and being? The dynamic range of living in the states versus abroad in Asia?

Ignore politics

Simple thoughts: never read the news, the only thing that you should interrogate is bitcoin, Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy news. Because the only news which should concern you is in regards to your money nothing else.

ERIC

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So currently a big thought on my mind is in regards to condensation.

For example, let us consider a backpack. There is only so much you could shove inside of it, and therefore, the optimal strategy in life is to have things that have maximum ability to condense; for example, having like an ultralight down jacket which is easily compressible and condensable is desirable.

Also unrelated is the thought of bitcoin. Interesting idea to me is how technically if you think about it… A bitcoin is like the ultimate expression of condensation. You take all this economic energy and power, and condense it into a single unit, which is a single bitcoin.

I think the more I consider bitcoin, and the underlying philosophy and ethos behind it, in actuality… The more fascinating it becomes.

For example, just came back from a month trip to Asia in Vietnam in Hong Kong, and the truth is, you can’t travel or take your single-family home or your cybertruck with you.  if anything… Each and every single day in which I woke up in my Hong Kong apartment, just enjoying the sun, and the spotty Wi-Fi… the Takeaway point was that after all of it, the only thing you have is your body, your mind, and your zest for adventure and freedom.

Even being back home in LA… One thing that I couldn’t take with me when I was traveling was my beloved 60 pound weight best. It’s good to have it back… But knowing that I’m about to hit the road again soon, it is always good to have one foot in, one foot out.

So the general idea is simple… Live your life domestic, planning as if you’re going to hit the road again… And never really too much be too committed to one single thing.

How do we falter?

We new nomads, we new conquerors, even the other day, driving through Beverly Hills… The big idea I had is that with wealth and everything in between… Property etc.… At least people living in LA, their world is so small. They only care about their pink Bentley, their $15 million single-family house, etc. Beverly Hills is their bubble. They never leave it, it is kind of like the dystopic society in “In Time”, the genius Justin Timberlake film in which time is actually predicated in time actually also very interesting thought is in the new Amazon sponsored series “secret level“, the “steampunk” universe in which the orphan guy has his money given to him “bits“ (bits,,, bit, micro bit coins)– he requires 75 bits to repay his debt obligations, in order to reconnect with the love of his life. Also in another unrelated note, the short video clip of the animated series of the girl giving the pilot $3 million of bitcoin in the USB drive, asking the plane pilot to take them somewhere.

Anyways, I think the idea of being unsettled is… unsettling.  I mean it kind of makes sense… To be settled, stable, is typically a good thing. Nobody would want to build their home on the edge of a cliff, knowing that any moment of mudslide can have them tumbling down to their personal death.

I think the difficult thing is let us consider, how hyper different modern day life and society is in respect in regards to our biological predisposition. For example, Technology advances at a much faster pace than our biological predisposition. Can you consider… Even 50 years ago, telling people that one day, each and every single American, regardless of how poor or rich you are, would have access to a god device, that could fit in your front pocket, that you could use with your voice, Your thumbs, your fingers, that could last all day, offer you free directions to anywhere on the planet, with micro precision, free entertainment essentially forever, with trillions of channels, insanely great high fidelity camera and video recorder which is free forever, which cannot be hacked by anybody else, which could also store all of your money on it, and you could instantly video call and new person on the planet, for free, whenever. Wouldn’t they pay like $1 million for this device? And now any person on the planet, regardless of how rich or poor they are, could afford this god device, for only 50 bucks a month.

Anyways, I’m also pretty sure that having this god device comes with downsides. For individuals — honestly it’s like crack cocaine. But maybe worse?

How to live

My simple philosophy with technology life everything etc.… Is reap the upside, kill the downside.

So a very simple thought… Disable all notifications on your phone besides FaceTime. This includes text messages.

The reason why I think this is such a good idea is that if it becomes ultimate filter. Truth be told, there is almost 0% of things which actually require your immediate attention. Reserve FaceTime for your mom, or your wife, everything else is not really necessary. 

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The will to ignorance

Distractions!

A new thought, ignorance, might be a critical ingredient to your concentration focus, power?

New thing I’m trying to do with my new lifestyle is trying to concentrate and focus better, which means avoiding television news streaming in front of your face?

For example, there’s this really nice hotel close to my house, which I like to just walk across, in order to use the bathroom and the facilities, but just this morning, there’s a fucking television streaming CNBC news, with all this fear clickbait headlines that arise anger and indignation in the viewer.

The thing that is so annoying about this to me is that I did not request the television to be there, nor did I request it to be streaming live television news either. If there had to be something streaming, on the television it would rather be John Wick, the Lego movie, or better yet, the Lego Batman movie.

Things you asked for, things you did not ask for?

I think this is a big thing is that try to not expose yourself to stuff you didn’t ask for. Or better yet, that you did not actually pay for with your own hard earned money.

For example, movies on flights. Obviously you’re boring and you got nothing better to do, the pen is either download a shit load of movies and shows to your iPad off-line, stuff that you paid money for in the Apple TV+ app, and also, games or other destruction stuff that you paid money for.

I think this is a big tricky thing… In two days we’re all in which entertainment is infinitely abundant, how do you stay focused? Simple. Once again, if you did not pay money for it, don’t watch it.

A simple strategy I do is if there is something I really really want to watch or experience, I put my money where my mouth is… I straight up purchased the whole film, even if it is 10 or $20 or $25 or something, in the Apple TV+ store. Even though obviously I could pirate it on pirate Bay for free, this becomes a good filter because in a world in which your time is infinitely valuable and precious, why would you sacrifice any of your precious attention on things you did not pay money for?

Practical thoughts

 so the first very practical thought is don’t bother with anything that is not easily condensable, or compactible.

For example when you’re traveling, let’s say you require a jacket or a warm article of clothing whatever… Only pack things that you could easily roll up and shove into your backpack. The Uniqlo ultra light down jacket is good. Also my personal favorite is the MUJI ultra light down vest.

Can you fold it up?

After being abroad for about a month, then coming back home to LA… I saw a cyber truck on the road the other day, and even though I love the design, it is so big! Too big! As a consequence, it’s really not a good idea because you can’t just magically fold it up. And this becomes critical in moments in which You just gotta find a damn parking spot!

And once again, the big idea is that you cannot magically fold up your car or your assets or whatever and just take it with you on a plane to Cambodia.

Now what?

Obviously the first thought is a kid. At least one, ideally two or more.

Why? To me it’s like the ultimate logical thing.

First, raising Seneca from birth until now has probably been the most satisfying thing in my entire life, multiplied by 1 million. There’s like literally no greater joy than a father raising his own son. His own blood son.

Once again, the greatest blessing as a man, to a son, even better yet, your first born son as a male.

Second, think economics. Michael Saylor said it well, you’ll like spend 1, trillion hours of your life working yourself to death, making money spending money saving money, yet we will not even devote a few hours to critically think about what money is, and also why it matters?

It’s simple; you spend 1 million years of your life making money, without actually questioning what money is or why it matters… You’re technically not leveraging your time well.

For example, for most individuals, the more hours you put in at work, the more moneys you’ll make.  it becomes a simple vector equation:

Input more time, yields more money.

But the reason why this is a poor idea is that you’ll essentially forever be a wage slave. To just equate your time, hourly wage, or even salary, is a losing game.

condense your sphere of concern 

Also in terms of condensation, condense your sphere of concern.

I think it is a zero some game in terms of concern. Let us say that you only have 10 units of concern, in a single day. And once you deplete your concern units, you cannot recover it in a day.

So for me, I would probably devote eight units of concern to Seneca, one to Cindy, one to myself. That is 10 out of 10. Nothing is left.

I think the problem that a lot of people have, especially if you were raised Christian, is that you think you have infinite compassion and concern for the whole planet. But this is not true. I’m almost wondering… If 99% of mental health issues arise from the fact that you overextend your units of concern beyond proper measure?

The more you concern for others, the less you concern for yourself your wife your kid.

Reconsidering the nuclear family

The nuclear family is you your wife or kid. That in itself is its own economy, let us consider that even the ancient word for economics literally meant household management, your wife, your kids, your slaves, your home estate.

Certainly an ancient times, life was probably much simpler. The king of the Josen Dynasty in Korea probably did not concern himself with international matters in the Middle East or Europe. Similarly speaking, King Leonidas only cared for Sparta, maybe the 5000 or so inhabitants etc., he had zero concern for anyone else.

So once again, condense your sphere of concern to the bare minimum. Once again yourself your wife your kid. Cut everything else out?

Becoming more selfish with your time your focus your concentration

Recently Cindy and I have been reading more Thich Nhat Hanh, in one of the really really interesting things that I gleaned is that meditation is simply concentration. 

For example, even when you’re on a flight and you’re bored, and you simply sit and close your eyes, put an earplugs and a face mask, and an eye mask, what you’re actually doing is concentrating. Trying to cut out distractions, is the best definition of meditation.

I even had a random idea that they only reason that I hate graffiti is that it is distracting. Any sort of advertising or spam which is unwarranted to me is positively bad because it is just like graffiti. I kind of know and I kinda get it because when I was a kid or a teenager or in high school, me and my friends guide to graffiti tagging, spray paint simply as kind of a risk game. The game was too use our spray paint or our spray tools to have a contest in which we will try to essentially have a competition:

Who would have the most balls and the most courage, to tag or spray paint in a spot which had maximum risk of getting caught, but yet not getting caught and getting away with it?

The moment that me and my best friend stopped was the moment in which we saw this old Latino woman, on her knees in hand scrubbing our graffiti spray paint game, about the age of our mom… Being teenagers or highschoolers, we didn’t really have a real practical thought that in fact, our mischievousness was predicated on actually having somebody about the age of her mom having to scrub it off herself? After that we swore off graffiti.

I’ve even had this thing in Culver City… Whenever I see ugly or annoying advertisement spam graffiti, I just take it as my own own to tear off the graffiti the spam or whatever and throw it in the trash because I am very visually sensitive, and I always do the same walking paths in the day. If anything I’m thinking about volunteering for my local city to volunteer my time to remove graffiti?

We are much more sensitive than we think we are

I think from an evolution perspective, we are insanely sensitive creatures to sound visual things, stories, ideas etc. In the past it was a matter of life or death.

For example, loud noises. Any in every single human being, is sensitive to loud noises. Because if you heard the rustling of a animal in the bushes, if you were not sensitive to the sound, you would have probably been eaten alive by a bear or something. Or if you saw something frightening with your own two eyes, also a survival mechanism. That is why whenever we see disturbing, could stay with us for days weeks months, maybe even years? Even soldiers, who have experienced tragedy get PTSD, from the sounds of bomb’s warfare, and personal tragedies with their own two eyes.

Practicalities

I have a simple filter: if that matter doesn’t actually involve money, don’t bother with it.

For example, currently my only concentration is bitcoin. And microstrategy stock which is essentially levered long bitcoin. And micro strategy, because I am a proud shareholder. And also, more recently, Dylan Le Clair —  because he has the most intelligent opinions when it comes to microstrategy.

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