AUDIO

My personal critique of living and life in America:

I feel like when it comes to life in America, 99.9% of the time we are thinking about buying a new car, getting that dream car, upgrading your car, upgrading your Apple devices, or iPhone, getting the new Tesla, or other random consumerist things. 

Why is this? My theory is that consumerism, capitalism, marketing, and advertising is so advanced in America, and we have access to too many choices and options. For example, toothpaste. As a kid growing up, I just knew one. Now as adult, I’m learning about all these new strange hippie toothpastes, without fluoride, as fluoride is supposed to somehow control your brain or whatever. Having to decide what type of toothpaste to buy is another distraction in my life. 

For myself, the thing I desire, the most, is philosophical introspection, focus on building my physical and muscular strength, my photography and art, writing, blogging and thinking. And also my health.

The difficult thing is that in America, it is very difficult to be healthy. Why is this? There is no really good city which allows you to walk around a lot, and live without a car. Even San Francisco is not really that walkable. Even in New York City, you’re stuck in the subway 90% of time. And no, I don’t like Brooklyn. It is essentially a suburb, and you have to still take the subway to get into the city. My thought is either you live on the island or off.

Europeans love to comment, and critique Americans for being so fat, lazy, and just driving their car everywhere. But have you ever tried to live in Orange County, Southern California, where there are literally no sidewalks? 

My thought is this: if I had the option of having the worlds most expensive hyper sports car, the most exotic Lamborghini or McLaren, or a Tesla model S plaid, or having the freedom to just walk around everywhere, I would choose the latter.

Why? Even if you’re in a Rolls-Royce, Bentley or a Hyundai genesis, etc., you’re just sitting on your butt all the time. No matter how comfortable the seat is or the car is, it is not good for your back or your health. Cars weaken you. And anything which weakens you is bad.

For me, the only real power is physiological power, physiological strength, and physiological well-being. For me power and strength is for the sake of lofty thoughts, thoughts, and a zest for a living, walking, playing with your kid, shooting photography and street photography, and attempting your one rep max in your deadlift and squat.

For me, power is not money, power is not territory, power is not political, power is not economic, nor social. For me, pure power is freedom to do what you want, when you want, and how you want. 

A funny thing is that in traditional Korean, you don’t ask people just “how are you“. You ask them how their digestion is. This might sound very strange to an American or westerner but Asians are all about digestion. In fact, health is to abstract of a notion. Digestion is concrete. in Asia and in the east, traditionally, digestion is health. 

Something I’ve noticed is that whenever I eat something country to my digestion, whether pork, Indian food, dairy products, coconut products, etc., it negatively affects my sleep, and my mood and well-being for the next day. When I have poor digestion, and I don’t sleep well, I feel a lot more weak