ERIC KIM

your imperative to joy! https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/30/the-imperative-of-joy-2/

The Imperative of Joy: An Eric Kim Breakdown

1. What is Joy?

Joy isn’t hedonistic pleasure. It’s the simple, profound moments—hugging your child, a shared Korean BBQ, or discovering an interesting idea. Joy is grounded in presence and connection.

2. Why is Joy Elusive?

Modern society profits from misery, not joy. Media and consumer culture amplify drama and discontent to keep us consuming, distracted, and unfulfilled.

3. Joy is Already Within You

Like Thich Nhat Hanh and even Jesus said, the seeds of happiness and heaven are within us. Joy isn’t external; it’s our inherent state when unburdened by societal pressures.

4. Our Duty to Joy

Sharing joy with others is an act of compassion and humanity. A smile can disarm hostility, and kindness costs nothing but yields immense returns.

5. The Power of Walking

Walking is the simplest embodiment of joy. It’s meditation in motion, a declaration of freedom. The joy isn’t in the destination; it’s in the act itself.

6. Break Free from Misery Traps

Sitting—whether in cars, offices, or couches—is the enemy of joy. Movement, activity, and freedom are the antidotes. Avoid the consumer-driven suburban rat race; opt for simplicity and mobility.

7. Consumerism vs. Real Joy

The endless chase for material wealth—cars, houses, and status—isn’t joy. Joy is in experiences, creativity, and shared moments.

8. Rethink Your Lifestyle

Live closer to what matters. Avoid long commutes, prioritize outdoor time, and embrace minimalism. Freedom is the ultimate luxury.

9. Bitcoin and Joy

Bitcoin represents invisible, incorruptible wealth. Unlike physical property tied to governments and taxes, Bitcoin is a form of economic freedom—secure, universal, and unseizable.

10. Exclusivity is Key

Joy isn’t about inclusivity for everything; it’s about discerning what truly matters. Like Harvard, Bitcoin’s exclusivity makes it valuable.

11. Retire on Bitcoin

Use Bitcoin to escape the hamster wheel. Living abroad in places like Vietnam or Mexico can reduce costs by 90%, enabling financial freedom and joyful living.

12. Think Long-Term

Bitcoin is immortal capital. Never sell it. Like prime real estate, its value only grows over time.

13. New Goals, New Life

Break out of routines, embrace change, and let curiosity guide you. Joy isn’t found in the old patterns but in the pursuit of something new.

Final Takeaway:

Joy isn’t complicated—it’s presence, simplicity, and freedom. Align your life with what truly matters, reject societal misery traps, and let joy be your compass.

PDF: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/The-Philosophy-of-Property-5-1.pdf

# The Philosophy of Property: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/29/the-philosophy-of-property-5/

I’ve never owned property in the traditional sense in my life. It is still kind of a strange and elusive concept for me.

For example, homeownership, is talented as some sort of desideratum, a thing to be desired.

So for example, I think like the baby boomer generation, the life goal of everybody was to own your own property? Like purchasing a single-family home, a plot of land etc.?

## Land?

Even Cindy’s mom said it best, you don’t own the property, the government owns it. Even assuming that you buy a plot of land or property in all cash, you’re still going to pay around like 1%, 1.05% property taxes on it like forever.

Even if you buy a house which is like $1.4 million or something, I think that’s like $1250 a month Justin property taxes, and then after homeowners insurance and stuff, which could also be considered an additional non-direct tax, You might be looking at like $2000 a month, just in “taxes”. Just throw in another thousand dollars and you already have rent.

## Why?

I thought this morning is in regards to the philosopher; what is a philosopher? A philosopher simply somebody who posits desideratum -- what we should desire, what we should **not** desire.

 For example, under no circumstances should we desire slavery poverty and to be encumbered. On the contrary, what we should desire is freedom, power and control; consider the blissful authority and self sovereignty of the Spartans.

## New Slaves?

> See there’s leaders and there’s followers, but I’d rather be a dick than a swallower! - Ye

 the tricky thing with a lot of modern day life is that a lot of the stuff is actually self-imposed slavery. For example let us say that you buy the new BMW M3, yet you finance it, I think the original word for finance actually means ransom.

So let us say that you’re paying like $1450 a month, just for your car payment. To me this seems like the most insanely foolish financial decision of all time; if you simply pour that into bitcoin, and assuming that bitcoin is going to at least 100X from here, maybe even 1000x, then what that means is that the payments on your car, is like metaphorically paying $15,000, $150,000, or even $1.5 million a month!  

## Future projections

If I could tell you with 100% certainty that in 21 years, bitcoin would be worth $100 million a coin, maybe even 105 million a coin, which means that assuming that bitcoin is around $100,000 today, that is like a 1000X gain 21 years from now.

Certainly it is possible you could die in a texting while driving accident today or tomorrow, but if you plan long-term --  if I told you that the money that you put in this thing today will yield 1000 X 21 years from now, and I could guarantee you with 100% certain that you would be alive healthy and well 21 years from now, wouldn’t you plan things differently and spend differently?

For example, that hundred dollars you put into that thing, could be worth $1000, $10,000, $100,000-- or even $1M! If that were the case wouldn’t you plan things differently?

Once again, $100 today being worth $1M in 21 years, with 100% certainty ,,, wouldn’t you plan your life differently?

First, you would certainly be much more scrappy, frugal, and pursue a much more austere and critical and Spartan lifestyle today. Of course there are certain things you gotta do like feed yourself, pay rent etc., but beyond this… Even thinking about recurring subscriptions and services, that $20 a month you’re spending on Spotify, what if that after doing the math, would mean that you’re paying $200,000 a month for Spotify? Why don’t you just cancel that subscription and put that money into bitcoin instead?

## Fractional property ownership

Truth! https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/26/bitcoin-is-happiness-2/

Bitcoin and Life Insights by Eric Kim

1. Bitcoin = Happiness

• Lock your economic energy into bitcoin for ultimate freedom and security.

2. Digital Nomad Dream

• Live untethered in places like Thailand or Mexico City; bitcoin empowers this lifestyle.

3. Vehicles Are Overrated

• Skip luxury cars; practical hybrids or plug-in hybrids like a Lexus TX are smarter choices.

4. No to Homeownership

• Owning real estate is a liability with taxes, maintenance, and endless costs.

5. Bitcoin > Real Estate

• Bitcoin is digital property: no taxes, no maintenance, no physical risks.

6. Volatility is Power

• Like fire or nuclear energy, bitcoin’s volatility is its strength, not a weakness.

7. Satoshi as Modern Prometheus

• Bitcoin is a gift to humanity, like fire; respect its profound impact.

8. Capitalism and Bitcoin

• True joy in capitalism is stacking capital (bitcoin) rather than depleting it on liabilities.

9. New Digital Assets

• Bitcoin is like owning digital Manhattan or Kyoto—immortal, divisible, and untouchable.

10. Physical Assets are Weak

• Rolexes, Porsches, and physical homes are liabilities compared to the strength of bitcoin.

11. Generational Shift

• Gen Z values experiences over homeownership; millennials should rethink settling down.

12. Bitcoin is the New Internet

• We’re in bitcoin’s early AOL days—don’t miss out.

13. Future of Bitcoin

• A single bitcoin could be worth $55M+; funnel your wealth into it now.

14. Economic Buffer

• Use wealth to eliminate stress, not for consumerism—be Spartan and focused.

15. Blockchain > Physical Vaults

• The blockchain is the new cloud; bitcoin is the ultimate security.

16. Markets Should Be Free

• Imagine trading stocks or bitcoin 24/7—total freedom.

17. Leverage Renting

• If your landlord is great, maximize that advantage—don’t rush to own property.

18. Focus on Strengths

• Free your time from managing physical assets; focus on big ideas and your unique talents.

Bitcoin is the future—stack it, live free, and build your life around what truly matters.

audio: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Big-bit-thoughts-.m4a

All, https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/25/big-bit-thoughts-2/

PDF. https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/BIG-BIT-THOUGHTS-6.pdf

# BIG BIT THOUGHTS.

I don’t think I know any human being on the planet who doesn’t want to be rich, or tries to increase their worth their net worth etc.

Doesn’t matter if you’re an investor, work for a charity, a church etc. Money and capital are critical, it is like our economic life blood.

For example, maybe you should think about blood. Blood is a critical and essential. Nobody could survive or thrive without blood.

Now imagine… That somebody is taking your help four-year-old child, in drawing a pint of blood from them a day. What is going to happen to the health of your kid? It will severely stunt his growth, or positively kill him.

Another thing… Imagine like you’re eating only rancid food your whole life, and the theory, you’re not going to die from it, but… Ain’t nobody want to eat rancid food.

Or, let us assume that you’re consuming certain foods to just keep you alive, like beans, but everyone knows that beans cause flatulence, even an ancient Roman times, and technically raw beans are toxic. Lagoons, naturally do not want to be eaten or consumed. And therefore the toxic shell membrane they create is probably to ward off predators.  And we clever humans, devised of ingenious ways to boil the shit out of them, just simply make them edible and not kill us. And the truth is, if you only ate beans you would not die, but… If you want to be the most demigod of them all, obviously you’re not going to be some sort of poverty person just consuming beans for some sort of strange higher altruistic purpose? Instead, you feast on the finest the bone marrow, the finest lamb ribs, just think about the hut of Achilles, what did he eat, and feed his guests?

## Building empire on true capital

You know how they talk about life before Jesus life after Jesus, BC and AD… I am quite certain that a similar concept will happen with Satoshi. Like before Satoshi, life BS (before Satoshi, haha sounds like BS), and life *AFTER* Satoshi (AS).

 so the issue with being a modern day human or even American is that so much of the economic policies are obfuscated from the general public. For example. When I was in Saigon, in Vietnam off the grid, I had some time to critically think about economic theory and the like, to really try to critically understand on how currency is printed, made dominant around the planet, supported by US military force etc.

In fact, if you think about the whole American the US military complex, it is basically focused on pumping money into the military industry, in order to assert military dominance on the planet, so all the weaker nations will have to force to use our dollars and accept and use our dollars, And also… America being able to pile on infinite debt obligations, knowing that she never intends to pay any of it back.

## Trillions of dollars of debt?

So if we think about that, we know about debt in context of just being a normal human being, we don’t really know and understand debt in terms of an American national policy.

For example, as a human being there’s a certain point in which numbers don’t really mean anything anymore. For example, I told you that the American national debt was 900 trillion, 45 trillion, $10 trillion, $18.3 trillion, would you be able to really understand or grasp this? Of course no!

audio, https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/My-Ethical-Imperative-Behind-Bitcoin.m4a

More - https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/25/my-ethical-imperative-behind-bitcoin/

post: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/22/the-ethics-of-bitcoin-5/

PDF. https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/The-Ethics-of-Bitcoin-5.pdf

Eric Kim’s Key Ideas on Bitcoin and Life:

1. Heat and Thermodynamics

• Your body doesn’t create heat; it preserves it. Jackets, homes, and insulation are about minimizing heat loss, not generating warmth.

• The best way to stay warm? Seal the drafts, layer up with Uniqlo HeatTech and merino wool, and focus on preserving what you already have.

2. Life is About Delegation

• Focus on what you’re insanely good at—your Archimedes lever.

• Don’t waste time fixing houses or on maintenance. Outsource it. Let others do what they’re good at while you stay in your zone of genius.

3. Bitcoin is Ethical Money

• Bitcoin doesn’t need PR teams, leaders, or marketing—it’s pure, decentralized, and immaculate.

• Unlike Dogecoin or Ethereum, it doesn’t rely on celebrity hype or false prophets. Bitcoin is the Tesla of money: innovative and unstoppable.

4. Bitcoin is the New iPhone

• In the early iPhone days, no one knew its potential. Same with Bitcoin now. It’s the beginning of a massive aftermarket boom, like iPhone accessories but for finance.

5. There’s No Second Best

• In crypto, it’s Bitcoin or nothing. Ethereum, Dogecoin, or any altcoin? They’re like Pepsi or Burger King—nobody really wants them. Bitcoin is Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald’s.

6. Bitcoin Equals Financial Freedom

• Growing up poor, financial independence became the ultimate virtue. Bitcoin is a tool for liberation.

• Just like clean water and fresh air, Bitcoin represents access to true economic health.

7. Bitcoin as Property and Cash

• Owning Bitcoin is like owning a single-family home in Culver City but infinitely scalable.

• It’s digital property and liquid cash at the same time—unmatched in versatility.

8. Exponential Growth is Unstoppable

• You can’t stop Bitcoin’s rise—it’s like early Facebook or Tesla’s ascent.

• BlackRock and ETFs are pouring in. Governments are noticing. This is the beginning of a financial paradigm shift.

9. Revolutionizing Society

• Imagine living in the back of the train eating bugs, or moving to the front for ribeye and sushi—that’s Bitcoin.

• It’s a chance to move from economic slavery to freedom, from drinking sewer water to fresh springs.

10. Why Bitcoin Matters

• It’s the antidote to poverty, financial despair, and economic inequality.

• Bitcoin is not just money; it’s ethics, philosophy, and the foundation for a better future.

This is the Year Zero of Bitcoin. We’re witnessing history in real time, and it’s only the beginning. Stay focused. Stay strong. Bitcoin is life.

How and why I care: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/22/my-new-modern-virtues-2/

Bitcoin Capital: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Bitcoin-capital.m4a

# Making Money vs Making Capital? https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/22/the-bitcoin-capitalist/

So a funny simple thought; country to popular belief, I think most people don’t really care about making money, maybe people care more about spending money or *feeling* rich, not actually being rich? 

## True prosperity

So the good news, assuming that you’re on a bitcoin standard, your family is on a bitcoin standard which means all of your Roth IRA, IRAs, retirement accounts, or stocks, assuming all these things are in micro strategies stock, you’re essentially set for life.

And also obviously you want a huge huge huge bitcoin war chest; as long as you got this, you’re pretty much set.

## The method

So once again guys, let us not get distracted. The goal is to stack as many bitcoins as humanly possible before you die!

The best analogy is like asking yourself, how many square blocks do I want to own in Manhattan, or Gangnam? Ideally all of it!

***

Facts! https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/11/20/bitcoin-is-happiness/

Summary of “Thinking Like an Engineer”

• Michael Saylor’s Misconception:

• Many believe Michael Saylor is a trader, but he is actually an engineer.

• Engineers think from first principles, deeply analyzing the true nature of things.

• Thinking Like an Engineer:

• The author relates to thinking like an engineer, applying first principles.

• Modern societal issues are often social problems that could benefit from engineering approaches.

• Leonardo da Vinci as a Model Engineer:

• Leonardo exemplifies infinite curiosity and playfulness.

• Despite his genius, he relied on patronage and wasn’t financially independent.

• True freedom and power come from personal financial independence.

• Bitcoin as Solidified Happiness:

• Bitcoin represents economic power, energy, joy, and happiness in a tangible form.

• Owning Bitcoin brings the author great happiness and a sense of empowerment.

• Bitcoin exists in cyberspace, not the physical realm, yet holds significant value.

• Reevaluating Preconceptions:

• The author overcame initial misconceptions about engineering being too math-heavy.

• Real engineering is rooted in physics and reality.

• Suggests rethinking societal norms from scratch (tabula rasa) using first principles.

• Innovation in Transportation:

• Proposes that if we redesigned transportation today, we’d opt for electric self-driving cars.

• Highlights the health hazards of tailpipe emissions from gasoline cars.

• Advocates for the practicality and environmental benefits of electric vehicles.

• Critique of Romanticizing the Past:

• Believes that clinging to the past is counterproductive.

• Questions societal norms like extravagant spending on engagement rings.

• Suggests practicality over tradition in personal and financial decisions.

• Bitcoin as Digital Real Estate:

• Compares Bitcoin to owning valuable real estate due to its limited supply (21 million bitcoins).

• Suggests that investing in Bitcoin is like acquiring prime digital property.

• Investment Strategies:

• Argues that renting is more financially prudent than buying property.

• Recommends investing in Bitcoin over traditional real estate for greater returns.

• Notes the significant increase in Bitcoin’s value and its potential for future growth.

• MicroStrategy (MSTR) Investment:

• Highlights the rise of MicroStrategy stock due to its significant Bitcoin holdings.

• The author invested in MSTR stock early and anticipates continued growth.

• Suggests using gains from MSTR stock to purchase more Bitcoin.

• Systemic Challenges:

• Observes that current systems are outdated and rigged against individuals.

• Uses the example of infrastructure based on ancient standards (e.g., Roman roads influencing car widths).

• Advocates for embracing new technologies and systems like Bitcoin.

• The Shift to Bitcoin:

• Notes that people are recognizing the superiority of Bitcoin over other cryptocurrencies.

• Predicts a migration of value from weaker assets to Bitcoin.

• Embracing New Economic Theories:

• Emphasizes the importance of innovative thinking over traditional economic models.

• Views Bitcoin as more valuable than major tech companies due to its global accessibility.

• Highlights Bitcoin’s potential to revolutionize global finance.

• Focus on Cyberspace:

• Echoes Michael Saylor’s sentiment to prioritize cyberspace over outer space exploration.

• Cyberspace is the new frontier for economic activity and power.

• Bitcoin is poised to become the global monetary network, even applicable in future space endeavors.

• Bitcoin’s Enduring Value:

• Bitcoin is unique in that it can last indefinitely, unlike physical objects subject to decay.

• Posits that Bitcoin might be the most ethical investment for the planet.

• Conclusion:

• Encourages investing in Bitcoin as a path to happiness and financial success.