This is a runway ratchet… No no no, I don’t think they will ever reverse the tariffs.

The death of the magnificent 7

The magnificent seven, the top text stocks, Amazon Apple Facebook etc. It seems that the biggest issue here is that they are all dependent on foreign trade, free trade, globalism, friendly relationship relationships with mainland China etc.

Even the big one… Apple, not a good sign. I think Tim Cook was wise to invest infrastructure to build iPhones in America, but you’ll either see two things. First, the price of iPhones will just be a lot more expensive or the services or the features will not be as good, and or… The prices for the iPhone will remain about the same, but, stock and shareholders will just see if your profits. Less growth more stagnation.

Who is safe?

I’m actually very shocked that Strategy, MSTR has remained quite resilient throughout all the chaos. On Friday it actually traded up, and starting this week, black Monday 2.0, MSTR is actually holding up very well!

The future is digital

The future is digital, cyber. Not physical products, but digital ones. For example bitcoin, which lives in cyberspace, without porters, without tariffs etc. I think the new future of profitable products will be bitcoin based.

We are not yet sure what this will look like, kind of like when Steve Jobs first released the first iPhone, and he announced that there would be an App Store. Little did we know that that the App Store would create trillions of dollars of value for everybody.

Imagine a bitcoin App Store?

Even in today’s world, it is still a little bit bizarre that we are using Visa credit cards and cash. Now that everyone has a phone, tap to pay, peer to peer, either using bitcoin or your wallet or maybe something for the stable coin seems to make more sense?

Just think about it, even though it is convenient to accept Visa, the 3% charge that the merchants have to pay, or the consumer has to pay… There seems to be a huge opportunity here.

Also, it seems the whole time, everybody has been living very fat. Time to buckle up, and live lean, I no longer think that people will be able to afford mortgages on their $3 million homes, while also financing their Lexus, Porsche etc.

Why all the models are broken

Donald Trump seems to have been the ultimate black Swan. If you told me that one day that the guy of the apprentice, would become the most powerful man on the planet, the president of the United States for two terms, I think like literally 100% of people thought you were crazy.

Also this tariff war, surprisingly it was actually not out of nowhere. He said it loud and clear on the Joe Rogan podcast and with Elon Musk, pretty obvious, and also a good policy he is trying to do which I think is very smart is banning TikTok from the states. It is simple reciprocity;

Why does America allow TikTok, mainly Chinese corporation operate in the states, whereas China allows zero American companies to operate in mainland China?

Saving up for your retirement was essentially betting that the magnificent seven would go on forever

Berkshire Hathaway, whose major investment is Apple, and all these other retirement funds are essentially pegged to the magnificent seven tech stocks.

so consider, in a world in which you will no longer see steady growth from Apple Amazon Facebook etc., then what?

Bitcoin is the answer

I think it’s pretty obvious, it’s like the Internet 3.0. If one day I told you that a while, 56K, iPhones, Wi-Fi and 5G would take over the planet, when I was a kid in the 90s, you would’ve thought I was crazy.

Sometimes not taking a risk is the most risky option of it all

If life were a corny movie, kind of true. Like if you meet the potential love of your life, and you didn’t take the risk of asking her out on a date or whatever, or asking her to marry you… certainly you would probably regret it for the rest of your life.

Who will thrive in today’s brave new world?

I have a prediction. Moving forward, we will never ever ever see stability again. It will continue to become more chaotic, more hyper, more volatile.

Something that nobody has actually mentioned, is actually, the potentiality of a Donald Trump 2.0, somebody who is actually more volatile and unpredictable than him? 

Eric Trump?

Hilarious he shares my first name! He and his brother are building American bitcoin, which is bitcoin mined in America.

Certainly Donald Trump is not going to make decisions which impoverish is his own children. So isn’t it super super obvious that bitcoin is the future and the way?

New economic models?

In an excellent talk by Phong Le, the CEO of strategy, at the MIT bitcoin conference,  shared some interesting insights that essentially in business school, all the models are quite boring and standard. Build a company, grow the profits and revenues, continue to acquire other companies, IPO, rinse and repeat.

Or, you become a consultant or a banker, a money manager.

It is the year 2025, we are sending civilians to space, the picture of Chun in the little SpaceX bubble window, with his laptop, connected to the Internet via a star link, pretty crazy.

“Are we the first generation of digital nomads in space?” – Chun

So why are we still like living in the 19th or 20th or 21st century? We gotta think the 22nd century and beyond.

Baby boomers are dead

Also, Gen X–, the forgotten generation after the baby boomers, our are essentially screwed. 

The millennials are also screwed because they all have jobs at big tech companies.

Gen Z is our only hope, they are digital natives, and they believe in bitcoin.

Live for today day by day

Carpe diem!

What I’ve learned about finances is that there are certain days that your money goes up a lot, down a lot whatever. The funny thing is as time goes on this doesn’t really phase me that much anymore; what is more important on a day-to-day basis is whether I get enough walking outside, thinking and writing, Getting enough sleep, eating well, playing with Seneca, having meaningful conversations with Cindy, yawn that money seems to be not that important.

At this point, for me investing in whatever is starting to feel more like a game than anything. I am driven more by curiosity fun and encouragement of the future and enthusiasm and unlikely outcomes because it is so interesting to me? Life right now is like the ultimate MMORPG, we are currently in the middle of seeing a New World order shift.

Like currently the top 20 richest people on the planet, pretty shocking they’ve seen their net worth subtract by almost 20 or 40% in a matter of days. Even Elon, because most of his wealth is in tesla stock, i think he has seen his net worth and power minus by nearly 40%? 

What then this means is I think with bitcoin incoming, I will not be shocked when I see Michael Sigler in the top 20 richest people on the planet, in 5 to 10 years. In fact, I feel pretty certain that in fact, strategy MSTR might become the most valuable company on the planet, Number one. Dethroning Apple.

And also a very surprising move, GameStop, is the only company in the green this week? And they are pivoting to also accumulating and acquiring bitcoin?

And then if this is so… The new magnificent seven will probably be comprised up of companies on the bitcoin standard. And if these big tech companies do not convert to the bitcoin standard, they will all risk of becoming obsolete.

So kind of a bad philosophy that I have… After thinking about this for a long time, assuming there is wise and there is foolish, there is courageous and there is cowardly… It seems that the truth of the matter is then, assuming that most people are foolish, what that then means is that most people don’t know what is good for them.

For example, the fault of the Austrian economists like Murray Rothsbard etc is that they say that each individual is 100% rational agent, which means that the decisions that people made for themselves, is for their best interest, even though we made sneer at them for being foolish. 

OK then assuming that the majority is right, that then means that 80% of Americans who are obese and overfat is a good thing, that the Toyota Corolla is the best car on the planet, that Starbucks Frappuccino‘s are the best beverage, and that McDonald’s hamburgers are both the best food item in that McDonald’s is the most successful restaurant of all time. And that China mainland China because she has the highest sheer number of individuals, is the best nation.

Certainly we know this is not the case. The reality of the matter is that assuming that we are the new Spartans, King Leonidas and his 300… certainly better to be a spartan 300 than one of the million Persian slaves, and also, better to be a Sparta with her few inhabitants than Persia.

Visuals

In reading the politics by Aristotle, the good idea I have is… Thinking of this notion of being a philosopher king. The general idea is that almost all of the systems are bad.

For example, according to Aristotle democracy is bad because for the most part it is governed by a bunch of poor people, without much virtue because freeman Are the only men who could actually attend virtue, because they actually have leisure.

Certainly Aristotle knows that tyranny is bad.  but I think the difficult thing is that people kind of define tyranny in an imprecise manner… a tyrant is actually an individual in which all the power resides in one person. 

Oligarchies are bad because oligarchies only imply rank based on riches. 

Then what is the direction we head towards?

I’m King Leonidas 

I was recently re-watching the movie 300 on the plane, thinking of King Leonidas, as a child, not being thrown off the cliff, and then, in the winter with the wolf, no fear just a heightened sense of things – a similar feeling, right beyond the first and the last moment with King Xerxes, the final stand.

Obvious decisions are obvious

Typically, when I’m not 100% certain about a decision, I just put on my weight vest, and I go on a long walk.

Once you have come to your decision, obvious decisions are pretty obvious.

Maybe once you have reached your obvious decision, it is like casting your spear, with your form perfect, throwing it straight into the head of Xerxes.

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Once you throw the spear, don’t look back.

ERIC

So not to invoke too much weird conspiracy theories or whatever, trying to think about this more sociologically and philosophically, I like this idea of thinking about social engineering, being a social engineer etc. 

Thank god for sociology

First, I’m starting more and more… That my studies and deep dive into sociology has actually yielded amazing fortunes.

First, ironically enough, studying sociology and teaching me to “de-matrix” myself has made me a lot financially richer. Like insanely a lot.

For example, I’m pretty certain and committed to the idea that anybody who got in early on bitcoin, like I did in 2018, when bitcoin was only $6999 a coin, you kind of needed a little bit of disconnection from reality, etc. For example, starting to unlearn ideas of currency etc., back in 2017 when I was zenning out in Vietnam  was certainly one of the greatest windfalls in my life. 

People like to talk a lot about “reality,” perhaps it is better to think about first principles physics etc.  for example, I’ve been doing another deep dive into my best friend Aristotle, and one of the greatest things about Aristotle, and honestly the funny thing is that nobody criticizes the great Aristotle, because he had his head screwed on well, the general idea is that I think the best way to profit in life is to think first principles, back to basics.

For example, Aristotle in his ethics, talks about chief goods, which essentially means the end goals or desires that we have of something.

first principles,  thinking from first principles maybe one of the greatest superpowers of Elon Musk. For example, if you think about Tesla; rather than thinking about “how to make a better car“, which is just the Toyota kaizen Way  i’m making each generation of the car about 3% better indefinitely, a first principles approach is like asking the question “what should a car be and what should a car look like?”

Other example with Steve Jobs, the original first principles thinker; when he was prototyping and imagining the first iPhone, rather than thinking by analogy, which is like how do we take a pre-existing blackberry and make it “better“, he reimagined the whole thing. He had the genius idea that it should just be all screen, And to get rid of the physical keyboard, even though people were addicted to their crack berries with the physical keys. I still remember in the early days when I was in high school, even an early college, when the original iPhone came out, people will talk about how their words per minute on the blackberry was like 1 billion times faster. But now, once again thinking about first principles, I never type anything with my fingers on my thumbs anymore, only voice dictation. Why? Voice dictation is still like 1000 times faster than typing on a keyboard and certainly your thumbs. 

I’m pretty convinced that the only reason people don’t use voice dictation more is because they are fearful of looking stupid. And this is where I have found it insanely beneficial to spend a lot of time traveling being in different countries etc., other countries they use voice dictation like almost 100% at the time. For example in Cambodia, to type in Khmer the local language takes like 1 trillion stroke so everybody has devised that it is actually much more efficient to voice dictate everything.

Also, one of the grand upsides of interacting and mingling with mainland Chinese, who often walk around the grocery store with two brand new iPhone pros that done each other, hand holding it, is that they have mastered the art of voice dictation out loud, with zero shame.

If anything, the only reason why people hate mainland Chinese people is that they wish they were them; full of zero concerns about other people their perceptions, all wearing Louis Vuitton, and they really don’t care about what other people think about them. And they’re like 1 trillion times richer than you. 

Courage of being outside, the courage of social life 

So after 10 days in Mexico, 11 days, going to see the monarch butterflies in Mexico at Valle de bravo, Mexico City, and also renting a car and driving for a few days, what have I learned?

First, ironically enough LA is kind of like paradise, especially being in West LA, Culver City. Why? First, one of the biggest issues about a lot of these great foreign countries, is pollution. In the race to industrialized, pollution is out of control. For example I love Mexico City to death, but one of the critical issues here is that There is so much pollution outside, and I don’t think there really are any laws against pollution there, so you see so many trucks without Cal converters driving around, smogging up the air. 

Second smoking. For me, one of the things I made hit the most in embody reality is secondhand cigarette smell. And this is the big ethical issue: 

Technically, when a smoker smokes a cigarette, because they are doing it through a filter, they actually are being exposed to less cancer than their secondhand smoke which they shoot out.

First do no harm unto others. This means ethically, one should not be permitted to smoke in public. Public means where there is other people who are walking around you.

Which means, ethically, it is fine for you to smoke inside your house with your windows closed or your car windows closed etc., but ethically, one should not be permitted to smoke outside in public or on the street.

What are the things which is actually insanely infuriating to me is that people have a strong sense of indignant about smoking in public like he has some sort of God-given rights to do so? Not only that but most people are kind of wimps, they are a bunch of sissies who don’t have the courage to ask a person to not smoke in public. Especially when you’re with your kid.

Actually this is a big thing I’ve personally discovered for myself is that things are now different once you have a young kid, I think in the past when people would smoke I would just take it, but now that I share the air with Seneca, it is for his sake.

Therefore, my thought on being a defender or an avenger is to simply defend those who you love, obviously your firstborn son, your wife, your mom etc.

Protect and defend those who you truly care for. 

Meat Paradise 

Going to Costco yesterday, picking up ribeye steak, beef ribs etc.… The truth is seriously in America we have access to everything. Even Amazon prime, we are seriously living in the best world of all time.

Also another random thought; the upside of living on the second story apartment building, you have access to more natural light! Nowadays the meme is for a lot of wealthy LA homeowners to build these funny two or three story mini building block Lego houses, but the great tragedy here is that when you’re on the bottom floor, you don’t have any access to natural life. Therefore the name of the game is to keep building higher, the second or third floor, in order to absorb a little bit more natural light.

Even my mom who had this very interesting idea is that why do plant humans other natural beings need water? For photosynthesis, photo like futons, the light, and to synthesize energy and power.

Also ironically enough if you think about the word photosynthesis, and that we are photographers and we shoot and we make photos, shouldn’t we integrate more light photons into our everyday life?

Photon Canon!

One of my favorite games is a kid growing up was Marvel versus Capcom, and also one of my favorite characters was Iron Man, and also war machine. They had this pretty cool super in which Iron Man can shoot a photon cannon.

Pretty cool because you could hardness the power of the sun, you could do real damage?

Also a fun idea is that actually, if you think about the genius of Elon Musk, Tesla, solar city etc. is the general idea of harnessing the power of the sun, solar panels solar panel power , as certainly the future.

Certainly the technology that we have access to right now doesn’t have enough power yet, but, it seems to be the most logical path forward.

harnessing more sun in your own everyday life?

Therefore the funny idea I have; maybe if you desire more strength power or whatever, just spend more time outside in the sun! If you’re afraid of the sun put on some sun block or a hat, but no no no you will not get sun cancer.

Certainly there are cases in which if your heritage is super super north Sweden, and your pale as a ghost, then maybe putting on sunscreen and hat and stuff is a good idea, but still, don’t be afraid of the sun, embrace it!

goals?

So, some simple thoughts:

First, still… Whenever I meet a lot of people their life goals and dreams and ambitions typically involve some sort of travel like traveling to Japan, etc. And even though traveling could be seen as a little bit superficial sometimes, I still think it is a super good idea because it will really really open up your eyes to the rest of the world, to re-challenge your typical assumptions, etc.

Second, create your own doge.  Department of governmental efficiency is literally about just cutting programs which seem kind of superfluous. Political matters aside, I do believe it is a good idea to try to cut superfluous expenses whenever possible, and therefore, it seems that it will almost always be a smart economic decision to cut costs, efficiency is all about cost cutting. 

Also, what a lot of people do not understand about Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey all these great entrepreneurs, is that in fact, they’re genius is sprung from the fact that they are masters of efficiency and cost cutting. Even Jeff Bezos, don’t forget how he would cut out Doors from Home Depot to create desks. Even apparently CEOs at IKEA all fly economy as well.

Spartan Sexiness

Some superficial things I often think about is like what is the best car, the best clothes etc., but the truth is the best shirt is no shirt, being topless or shirtless, think of King Leonidas and his 300.

Even pants and shorts, essentially know that the Spartans were all essentially in male bikinis. Even a kind of random thing is that my last pair of ex officio underwear that I purchased were the black “give N go 2.0” briefs — not the boxers, but the ones that look like a speedo.

Sublime samurai

One of my favorite visuals is this all black all Matt black samurai in full samurai armor, with some hints of gold and red tassels, from chubby cattle.

Even though all black everything all that black everything is kind of a superficial aesthetic, screw it, it’s still pretty good.

bitcoin belongs to me! 

We are all Satoshi we are all Michael Saylor

I think ultimately my great pride of owning bitcoin, bitcoin is like a bitcoin owner or a property owner, is that there is actually a deep sense of pride in owning bitcoin.

Considering that I’ve been stacking bitcoin since 2018, like at least 20 or 30 purchase orders, I guess I am really committed.

Even though bitcoin is still kind of political now, considering the US strategic bitcoin reserve act,  one of the big ideas and thoughts is that bitcoin is for the most part, pretty a political which then means, you can just bitcoin and chill, without having to stay updated with annoying news about all this ridiculous political matters and affairs. 

So a big thought on my mind, is thinking and wondering what is more valuable; bitcoin, microstrategy, something else?

So one of the first investor announcements in which I attended, live webinar, hosted on Zoom, for micro strategy maybe like October 30 last year… Very very exciting as it was my first time attending a live investor call. To see Michael Saylor in the virtual flesh, life was really really exciting… Like seeing a live rockstar!

Anyways, well what was kind of interesting was Michael Saylor branded microstrategy as a “bitcoin treasury company“, or funny enough a… “BTC”.

 in another talk you did in front of a bunch of investors, maybe a month prior to that, he essentially noted that essentially micro strategy was becoming a bitcoin bank, however you cannot do overnight deposits in withdrawals which means that micro strategy has a permanent base of bitcoin treasuries. And if we think about the greater macro trends of bitcoin going up forever to the top right, then what that means is that micro strategy is easily poise to become a $1 trillion plus company. Maybe at least 3 trillion or even 10 trillion in the next 10 to 20 years?

Bitcoin bank

I think for a long time if you said, you can invest in a bank, in the early days. For example can you imagine investing in JP Morgan Chase like 120, 200, 300 years ago? Certainly your family would have a fortune.

Or another analogy like becoming standard oil, becoming an oil company, investing in oil. Certainly everybody understands that oil is valuable, but the way that John de Rockefeller made it very very useful was being able to standardize oil, and transform the crude oil product into useful stuff like creating asphalt and also Jet fuel engine, and the gasoline you put in your car.

We are still in the early days of bitcoin, and now… The floodgates have opened. I feel like the whole planet right now is like a crypto arena, like a real life game of gladiator, a crypto Colosseum.

Anyways, things are starting to get fun and interesting; the reason being that now when everyone is becoming to get scared shitless, this is when the real fun begins! If anything, I’m hungry to get access to more capital, to invest when everybody else is scared. I guess having big balls is a huge benefit in today’s fun exciting volatile world.

Wagyu is the key

In a totally unrelated note, on my 37th birthday, I had the extreme pleasure of being treated to the “gold”, level of all you eat Japanese Wagyu Korean barbecue style, in Little Tokyo at my new favorite restaurant on the planet, “chubby cattle”. All you can eat wagyu, A5 Wagyu… I love America!

And also kind of unrelated, probably one of the best kept secrets is that Costco sells American style Wagyu beef, ground beef, 70/30, in these bricks, which taste insanely good and great, and is only maybe like I think five dollars a pound? Typically my favorite is beef ribs, but one of the big problems about beef ribs is that half of the weight is just a bone, which is in some sense “filler”, unless you instant pot the rib bones later to make a beef bone broth soup, which is also a good idea, but anyways, I had only about 3 pounds of the Costco Wagyu ground beef last night, just cooked as simple burger patties, and I slept in like two minutes. I’m almost wondering… If you suffer from insomnia I have a hard time sleeping whatever, just try this; get a bunch of the Costco Wagyu ground beef, cook it at home on your fry pan or air fryer, try to eat at least three or 4 pounds of it, and then I can almost guarantee you that you’ll fall asleep immediately. And the upside of sleeping insanely well  is that the next day, you wake up with so much bigger joy excitement, strength wellness optimism happiness and glee, and isn’t this what everybody wants?

Weight lifting

I’m starting to think more and more, certainly anybody and everybody can benefit from weightlifting, doesn’t matter if it is your 70-year-old mom, your neighbor next-door, you and your wife your kids whatever.

Instead of thinking of it like weightlifting, maybe we should think of it like gravity training. If you think about Goku in the gravity chamber, the basic concept and principle is simple; you’re fighting against gravity, which will strengthen your tendons your bones your ligaments your body your muscles etc.… But I think the key idea and the key secret is Towards strengthening and hormesis;  you do not want long-term stress on your body at a medium intensity. Instead, you want an insanely high stressor or insanely high impact, for like half a second, for an insanely short duration, infrequently.

For example, better to lift 1000 pounds, once, for half a centimeter, once a week rather than to lift 100 pounds, 100 times, five days a week.

Also in terms of fitness, better to do insanely short fun sprints, for like 30 seconds, the “HIIT” style, high intensity interval training rather than “run“ for like five hours straight?

Ground beliefs

So, assuming that you have the ground truth that bitcoin is going up forever, in a very volatile manner, very jittery, up-and-down, but ultimately to the top and right forever, then what?

I also have a very interesting personal thesis about return; maybe from a physics perspective, the general idea is that in order for a high to go higher, you need a lower low?

For example, if you did not have insanely high dips down, you cannot have new insanely high highs?

This also becomes interesting as a life philosophy, in theory if you want higher highs, you also need lower lows?

Maximizing pleasure & joy?

I think what a lot of basic heatedness don’t understand is that actually, if you desire a higher high you also need a lower low. What that means is simple; in order to harness a higher high, you actually need to become more spartan, sparing, embrace fasting.

For example, rather than blowing your load every single day, if you want to in theory maximize your hedonic sexual pleasure, you would actually in theory… Want to be celibate for like 29 days, and only have intercourse once a month? 

Similarly speaking, if you were dumb rich, you would not want to buy a Lamborghini each and every single day, 30 days straight, 365 days in a year straight. This would probably not bring you much joy. It’s kind of also like eating Japanese A5 Wagyu meat, it is only enjoyable if you eat it like once a year, once a month at tops, if you have it each and every single day, even the richest most wonderful thing can lose its appeal.

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I LOVE LA FOREVER!

My mind is blown… It’s like February 2, still technically dead winter, and the sun outside is so beautiful warm and nice, I could still be shirtless end of January early February? I’m never leaving this place!

Actually one of the funniest thoughts I have about leaving the state going to Vietnam for about a month Hong Kong for a weekend being back… Things that America, LA and the west side have going for it:

1. Air quality here is 10000x cleaner and better than Asia: Ironically enough, one of the greatest benefits of being in the west side, Culver City etc.… Is actually, there’s not many smokers. It is quite rare here. Compare this to being in Hong Kong Kong, in which literally like 99% of the men all smoke in the streets? And also being in Saigon, I love Saigon to death but the downside is because of the rapid industrialization, the pollution in Saigon and Vietnam is so bad.
2. Access to meat: in another funny turn of events, actually, having access to beef and meat in America is like 100 times better than anywhere else in the world? If you’re in Asia , getting access to beef is actually very difficult; I suppose all the government subsidies for beef in America will benefit us.
3. Freedom of speech: after being in Asia, the truth is you don’t really have freedom of speech in Asia. One wrong sentiment and boom, you’re gonna get a knock on your door. And also… Internet censorship, no no no, the Internet is not censored in America, it is more or less 100% free. Just try going to anywhere in Asia or Southeast Asia, when certain websites are banned or blocked or whatever… And then your mind will be opened. Even a simple thing… If you’re in Hong Kong, you cannot use ChatGPT.

What if where you currently were standing were already paradise? 

I also have another funny sentiment; actually a very positive and optimistic one: we forward in 2025 I’m just gonna think that everything is good, even the “bad”?

So simple!

SimpleStrategy?

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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