Forever?

“Why should I pour my precious salves into the sea?” – Nietzsche

I think a certain ideal which is fascinating is this whole idea and notion of forever. It seems that we are seeking forever as a generalized concept, but why, for the sake of what? 

You must die

As I thought experiment, if an angel or demon came down to you, and told you that you would live forever, it might be considered the worst curse of all time. Why? Sooner or later, you’re probably going to get bored of life, and you will want to die.

To live forever might be the worst curse of all time.

The first general philosophical Stoic thought that I have is that the truth is, having things which are limited is a positively good thing. Why?

First, when things are limited, you actually appreciate it more. For example, my mom is currently visiting from Korea, and because we know her time here is limited, I feel that we are living and spending time with her much more intentionally, savoring every single moment with her. This means never taking any moment for granted; each and every moment is infinitely precious, and is to be made grateful.

I’m sure if I always have my mom with me, forever, most likely I would not be as grateful.

Also having a kid, having a son, having Seneca; I appreciate each and every moment with him. Literally by the day, every and each single day he wakes up, he is a transform boy, a transformed man. Each and every day he’s becoming more cognizant, he is talking better, he’s becoming more intelligent, more aware, More funny and silly and hilarious, stronger taller more muscular, more capable.

I think the big problem is that they don’t have enough pride in their kids. Traditional jail Christian moral ethics say that pride is a bad thing, to brag about your kid and to show off your kid is a bad thing… But what is the opposite? Being humble and not having pride in your kid, which leads to parents just being on their iPhones all day, while their kid is playing at the park. People often lament the fact all these parents are on their phones all the time, watching YouTube or on Facebook, or on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, while their kids are playing at the park… my personal read on this is that most parents just don’t find their children fascinating; they are not impressed by their kids. And that is fine, let mediocre parents raise mediocre kids, it is none of our concern.

Our concern is to elevate our own children, to glorify them, to them with praise, and to lock away your loser iPhone, and devote 1000% focus on your kid. 

In fact, a single tip I have for parents and new parents is this:

No iPhone Pro

Instead, just get an iPhone SE or an iPhone mini.


Is your body forever?

Certainly sooner or later, we will and we must die. It is possible to die from a traumatic death, which means getting hit by a car, while you are texting while crossing the crosswalk, or, dying in a car accident when you were texting while driving. I saw an advertisement other day that apparently 50% of people don’t survive if they are hit by a car going at just 30 mph. Living in Los Angeles, I often see cars blasting by 50 mph!

I’m in the best shape of my life

People often lament the fact that they are no longer in their prime. People always think of their prime as behind them, never in front of them.

This typically has to deal with age, biologically aging or whatever.

However the really interesting new ones is apparently the ancient Greeks thought that the future was behind them, and the past was in front of them. Why? I think the general idea was that we could see the past with 100% clarity, but we are blind to the future.

 for example, at the age of 36, I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life. The most confident, tall, handsome, the best full body tan, my biceps shoulders and arms, my legs and thighs, my overall confidence etc.

At the age of 36, I’m in peak shape. Much better than when I was 28, 22, 16 or whatever.

The best is yet to come?

I think the critical issue we have here is when we think about aging, what we tend to think about is bodily decay and degeneration. The scientific term for this is “senescence”.

 However, I’ll never forget… One of the guys I met at my old crunch gym, insanely great shape, look like a super healthy fit dude in his 40s, told me that he was actually 72 years old, I was amazed! Also when hiking near Stoneview nature center, I met this one really really fit African-American lady, also who look like a really fit 45 or 47-year-old, wearing Lululemon leggings, all with silver hair, also told me she was in her 70s!

The problem in Korea, America and beyond, the general thought is as we get older, it is inevitable that we degenerate and decay. 

Certainly sooner or later we will die. Whether that be 122 years old, 110 years old, 100 years old, 90 years old, 80 years old or whatever. But it seems that in two days world, being in your 80s is like the new 50s, and being 50s is the new 30s.

And actually ironically enough, now at the age of 36, I’m starting to feel like the new Brad Pitt. I think I’m about his height, I’m 5 foot 11, and my body fat levels are similar to Brad Pitt and fight club, except I have much more muscle mass and I am much stronger. And I have the coolest haircut of all time, courtesy of Cindy.

What to do?

Some techniques, tactics, ways of thinking: 

  1. The past you was the worst you: Why do we always think that somehow, the past version of ourselves was a superior version of ourselves?
  2. Thank God for America: if you’re reading this and you’re living in the states, have access to Amazon prime, Titan.fitness, you can purchase bitcoin on Coinbase or whatever, consider yourself blessed. I still remember simple things like trying to buy an SD card in Japan or Korea, it was like 50 bucks for just a simple 64 GB card! On Amazon I think you get it for like 10 or 15 bucks. Also, according to my mom, apparently clothing and shoes is insanely expensive in Korea. For example, a T-shirt is like 50 bucks! Something you could easily buy on under Armour website in the states for only 20 bucks! Everything is cheaper in the states.
  3. Censorship resistance: if you’re an American, and you have never traveled outside the states, consider yourself myopic. The typical conceited, self indulgent, fake patriot American is all about talking about how the government is trying to censor them or whatever, but until you have gone to Vietnam, mainly in China, Cambodia, etc. in which you literally try to type in gmail.com and you cannot open it, or you cannot download the ChatGPT app in the App Store, or you cannot use Google, Access your Coinbase account, whatever… You don’t know what true censorship is. And can you also imagine, tweeting or posting negative things about Donald Trump or the president or political candidates, and randomly having the secret police knock at your door, incarcerate you without trial, four years? This will never happen in America, consider yourself blessed. as an example, there were often times that I could not even access wordpress.com in Vietnam! And also during one of the student protest, the Vietnamese government shut down all of Facebook, Facebook messenger, Instagram for a whole day; really bad news because 99% of Vietnamese commerce happens over Facebook messenger, consider All of the millions or billions of dollars of economic activity which could not happen that day.

Fitness & food?

Time to dispel some myths:

  1. Fiber is fake: no no no, you do not need fiber. I follow 100% carnivore diet, and I go to the bathroom regularly every morning. My personal theory about this whole fire thing is probably propaganda or political lobbying from the wheat and bread group in America.
  2. Fruit is candy with a good conscience: Traditionally, if you look at fruit in the Levant, oranges were very very small, bitter, 99% pulp. If you look at a modern day orange, nectarine, cutie, tangerine, apple or whatever… They are genetic monstrosities. Essentially like a solidified Coca-Cola can.
  3. You don’t need vegetables: certainly dark bitter green like colored greens, kale or whatever has a pleasant bitter taste, but you don’t need it.
  4. Alcohol causes cancer: according to the national Canadian health organization, any amount of alcohol is toxic, and will give you cancer. Even two drinks a week is bad for you. And let us consider there is no downside of not drinking alcohol.
  5. Marijuana makes you stupid
  6. Running is for losers: either walk around town with a 60 pound weight best, at a leisurely pace, or engage in Usain Bolt like sprinting. Running at moderate or even moderate high or even high intensity is bad.
  7. Meat is not bad for you

So what should one do instead?

  1. Buy a 60 pound weight vest: I think the critical issue that everyone has in regards to fitnesses nobody has time for nothing. I say just go to Titan.fitness, and buy the 60 pound weight vest. When you wake up and after you have your morning coffee, just drop it on and just walk around the block! Or if you’re a tech worker, just wear it at the office, your standing desk! Or if you’d like to do the treadmill or whatever, just drop it on and walk on your treadmill with it! The upside is I’m quite certain it could act as a bulletproof fest. Or like some sort of modern day body armor; if somebody tried to punch you or kick you with your 60 pound weight vest on, they would most likely fracture their fists or bodies.
  2. Build your own home gym? Titan.fitness, just build your own home gym. Now living in Los Angeles, no more gems. Literally even driving local, you’re gonna be stuck in traffic going 15 minutes one way, not worth it. However if you do have access to a good gym, just go to the gym! at least once every day, maybe even twice a day!
  3. Insanely hot bats: the hot sauna at the gym, or if you have a bathtub at home, take insanely hot baths!
  4. Consume organ meats, beef liver, beef heart, beef kidneys, intestines, just go to the local grocery store or meat market. If you have access to Costco, get the beef ribs, or the Wagyu ground beef, or get the frozen 100% breast-fed ground beef. Beef is better.

Why is this whole weird plant-based diet trend?

My theory is it has to deal with virtue signaling; misinformation, lack of religion. To be a plant based person is seen as a new religion of sorts; maybe you have a dog, dogs, a cat or multiple cats, perhaps you don’t have kids or whatever. I also think it is a virtuous annoying thing; it is seen as morally evil and bad to consume, because apparently it is bad for environment, the planet, cruel to animals or whatever.

Inside, the hilarious intervention is if you really want to be an ethical person? Only consume or meet, the leftovers in the scraps. For example in Orange County, you go to the local super king, you could buy beef liver for only $1.99 a pound! Typically people throw away the liver and the organ it is not desirable by the American public.

> Stop eating plants, eat organ meats.

The best food in Japan

Motsu-nabe

A very interesting thing that Cindy and I learned while living in Japan, is Motsu Nabe the history of it. 

Motsu just means soup, Motsu is innards, intestines, the like. 

The history of Motsu nabe is super fascinating; essentially the really poor Koreans who immigrated to Japan as labor workers, would just take the throwaway scraps from their wealthy Japanesecounterparts, and just boil and make a soup out of it. The Japanese would throw away the innards. And now the hilarity is now Motsu-nabe is the new elite food; foe the rich and privileged. Kind of similar like how former slaves in the south would make gumbo, jambalaya, with pig intestines, which was scraps from the slave masters. Now everybody loves it!

Also what is super fascinating is the Korean and Vietnamese word for liver, “gan” means gold, or something of great worth. Apparently back in the days, the liver was only reserved for the super rich and privilege, the emperor. Even my mom knows that when a wolf kills the prey, the first thing it eats is the liver, then intestines, etc. and it leaves the flesh meets for the scavengers.

Also another interesting thing, pate, duck liver mousse or pate is seen as the Apex of sophistication for the French. It is essentially liver.

Why liver? It has the highest nutritional density. 

And the funny thing; is liver even “meat“?

More thoughts

I guess my thoughts on bitcoin was right. Now that bitcoin is currently hovering at around $70,000 at bitcoin, it looks like I was right all along.

Some things that I learned from Michael Sailer which seemed really really useful and practical:

  1. The real rich and wealthy people only keep one percent of their net worth in Fiat currency, the US dollar. No rich person will brag to you that they have $1 billion of US dollar currency in their JP Morgan chase checking account. The real rich people will typically have their wealth tied up in Capital like land or real estate. For example, owning a square block in Manhattan or Hong Kong or in the middle of Tokyo. The problem with Fiat currency, the US dollar, is that the value of it is slowly bleeding at 7 to 10% a year. That means if you hold $1 million of cash in your checking account, your purchasing power will diminish by 7 to 10% every single year.
  2. The easiest thing to do is store one percent of your money in paper currency, the US dollar, and use 99% of your excess money to just buy bitcoin. Even a year or two ago, I had the thought that the optimal strategy is to just convert all your fiat currency into bitcoin!

What about ethereum and other stuff?

“There is no second best”- Michael Saylor

My new favorite thinker is Michael Saylor, his knowledge of history, science is astounding, just listen to the three hour podcast interview with Lex Fridman — better than any college course or degree I have ever gotten!

Anyways, I think this sentiment that there is no second best is a good one. Nobody ever remembers those who won second place or the silver.

Even more nuance, we often forget those who are number one, or the gold. Let alone second place.

Nobody cares about second place

Apple is number one, iPhone number one, android is number two. Nobody cares about android

Globally, America’s number one, China’s number two. Nobody cares about China. Maybe in terms of field currency, the US dollar is strongest, and then maybe after that it might be the pound, the euro, or maybe the CNY, but the truth is there is no second best fiat currency after the us dollar.

 nobody wants the euro, because my personal prediction is in the next 30 years, Germany will probably break off from the European nation, and reinstate her own Deutschmark. Why? Seems that Germany is the last and only productive nation and all of Europe; the rest of all the other nations are just dragging her down. 

The British are dying a slow debt. I think it is a good idea that they broke off from the EU, but still… The value of the British pound is slowly dying.

Japan is in a severe crisis, and also Korea.

China seems to be doing OK, but even China, nobody wants the CNY. No matter how much China tries to coerce Cambodia, Cambodia, Cambodians would still prefer the US dollar.

Even Vietnam, the Vietnamese would prefer $100 US dollars, brand new Benjamins over the local Vietnamese dong.

However critical downside is even though that the US dollar is the most supreme currency on the planet, it is still flawed. The purchasing power of the US dollar is falling rapidly, at an alarming rate. Even in Los Angeles, average gas prices are over five dollars a gallon, 6 dollars a gallon in some places.

And also, the new minimum wage for McDonald’s has jumped from $16 an hour, to $20 an hour overnight! This means the inflation has gone up 30 to 40% overnight, and I think that within the next two or three years, you will slowly see the price of everything creep up by 20 to 30%, rent prices, The price of buying a single-family home etc.

What to do?

I feel like we have several options:

First, leave the states. Honestly if Cindy didn’t have a job in the states, I would personally see zero reason to live in here. I would prefer to live in Panin Cambodia, live in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, maybe Bangkok in Thailand, etc. I prefer Southeast Asia the states. Why? America’s too expensive, your purchasing power here is very weak.

Second: become insanely frugal, and just intelligently funnel your access US dollars into bitcoin. And keep your living expenses low, as you see the value of your bitcoin go up!


Now what?

At the end end of all this, once you become a millionaire, a bitcoin millionaire or billionaire or whatever… Then what?

Michael tells us to keep stacking those satoshis, I see that there is probably a certain point in which it is good to just be content, and be focused on other things like your photography, artistic production, your philosophical production, etc.

I still believe with all my heart and soul blogging, websites, email newsletters are the future.

Why? It is permissionless, open, censorship resistant. Anybody who is still using Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, even YouTube is a loser. 

Build the future

In America, and a lot of the world, you have the right to build. Building things physically in the physical world is often too expensive, too cost prohibitive. This is where I think building websites, blogging, vlogging or whatever is good. 

First, certainly it cost your time labor, but the raw materials of digital things is free!  if you do not have a personal website, you’re missing out. Honestly I practically think it is free, just making a simple wordpress.org website with blue host.com is maybe what five dollars USD a month? Cancel all of your Spotify subscriptions, your Netflix and whatever… And funnel that money into your own website instead.

Let us say that your own property or house, and your mortgage is like four to $5000 a month. Digital real estate is superior; it is 1000 times cheaper, or 100,000 X cheaper . The most obvious economic leverage!

Ideally your website and your domain name should just be your first and last name. I think the genius of Michael Saylor is he owns michael.com, as well as hope.com. Very impressive.

Even Elon Musk, the genius of him purchasing.com; genius.

It looks like all of the bitcoin domains have been gobbled up, I still think there is great opportunities to be had in the online domain world.