Stop thinking, planning, studying, and just start doing!

Just treat life like the ultimate open world video game

My new goal in life is to be outside for at least 12 hours per day.

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dante-sisofo/embed/episodes/Ricoh-is-the-new-Leica-e2ksila/a-abbv73r

The first time I picked up Ricoh GR camera was in 2015 with the Ricoh GRII. I started using this camera after two years of photographing using a Leica M3. As soon as I picked up this camera, my photography skills increased 1000 times faster than ever before. I believe that Ricoh is the new Leica, that we must go out with the old, and in with the new.

I’m tired of hearing people complain about not having enough time to photograph. Maybe if you had a camera that fits in your pocket, you would see yourself photographing more. 

Don’t be a photographer

Just yesterday, I was walking down the street with some photographers, photographing using film cameras and Leica. Many old people, love to stop and talk about the cameras, the gear, the film, and the feeling of using it. There’s this over-sensational, romanticized notion of photography, being the photographer, that we must go beyond. This guy even told me that I’m not a real photographer, because I’m not using a real camera, and then I just spray and pray. I think it’s hilarious to me, these notions around photography, and what makes somebody a true photographer or not. The harsh truth is, I haven’t seen an interesting photograph, produced by somebody who uses a Leica, in a very long time. Maybe this is a sign that it’s time to move on? 

You don’t need a viewfinder

I believe we have this misconception that having a viewfinder allows you to make compositions more intentionally, and it’s needed within the realm of street photography. This is far from the truth, and I believe the viewfinder is a limiting tool. The fact that the Ricoh removes the viewfinder, is liberating, and will allow you to embrace your intuition more.

My thought is that intuition is composition, and the use of an LCD screen will allow you to achieve this connection between you and the camera, without thinking about it too much. The viewfinder requires you to lift the camera to your eye, and then press the shutter. However, with an LCD screen, I can hold my camera in a unique way, throwing it around from high vantage points, to low angles, and anything in between, to achieve, the position of my camera that I deem necessary.

Not to mention, you look like a tourist when you use an LCD screen, and allows you to photograph candidly without ever having a confrontation. Once you start shooting with an LCD screen, you’re not going to want to go back to the old school way of using a viewfinder. It’s just way faster, more liberating, and allows for more spontaneous possibility with the photographs that you make.

The best cameras in your pocket

No more excuses. I’m tired of hearing people say that they don’t have time to photograph. If this is the case, throw a Ricoh in your pocket, for a month, and see how much more fun, and how many more photographs you will make. There really is no excuse with this camera, as it is always there, always with you.

We oftentimes get bogged down by camera gear, lens choices, deciding between whether or not we want to photograph today, at another time, with this or that lens, and I believe that this is because of the nature of putting a camera around your neck, and becoming a “photographer.” A “real” camera just bogs you down, it’s heavy, and it makes you appear as a photographer. I don’t want to appear as a photographer, I want to have a camera that is the closest thing not having a camera. I want to appear to be a tourist, not a photographer.

There’s too much gear obsession that prevents people from producing strong work. The “masters” all used a Leica in the 20th century, but it’s currently 2024. It’s time to move on, start producing, and stop pretending.

Leica is dead. Leica remains dead. And camera nerds have killed it.

Procrustes’s bed is a concept from Greek mythology associated with the rogue smith and bandit named Procrustes. According to the myth, Procrustes would offer travelers a bed to sleep in, but the bed was unique in that he forced his guests to fit its exact length. If the guest was too short for the bed, Procrustes would stretch their bodies to fit. Conversely, if the guest was too tall, he would cut off their legs to make them fit the bed. This myth is often used metaphorically to describe a situation where different sizes or perspectives are forced into a single, arbitrary standard, often resulting in distortion or harm.

Step 1:

Go outside

Your reflections resonate deeply with themes of authenticity, experience, and the pursuit of a meaningful life beyond the superficiality and passive consumption so prevalent in modern society. Your insights can be distilled into several core ideas:

1. Embodied Reality vs. Virtual Reality:
   You emphasize the value of direct, real-world experiences over virtual or second-hand information. The truth, you suggest, is found outside, under the sunlight, through personal encounters and adventures.
2. The Trap of Passivity:
   Many people, you argue, live passively, consuming media and information without actively engaging with the world. This passivity leads to division, mental unwellness, and a detachment from reality.
3. Critique of Modern Society:
   Your observations of Philadelphia’s Market Street reflect a broader critique of urban decay, drug addiction, and the normalization of suffering. This ties into your disdain for the pervasive influence of pharmaceuticals and unhealthy lifestyles, even among those in the healthcare profession.
4. The Illusion of Pleasure:
   You challenge the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, questioning its purpose and advocating for a life of discomfort and sacrifice for greater goals. This critique extends to modern entertainment, which you find lacking compared to the novelty and meaning found in photography and creative pursuits.
5. The Power of Food:
   Reflecting on your time in Zambia, you highlight the importance of nutrition and criticize the misinformation around dietary guidelines, particularly the vilification of red meat. You advocate for a diet based on whole foods and red meat, drawing from your own experiences and observations.
6. Championing Experience and Adventure:
   You call for an active engagement with life, embracing danger and adventure to find meaning. By seeking the path of most resistance, you believe we can overcome ourselves and live fully, preparing us for the inevitability of death with a sense of fulfillment and peace.

Your reflections can inspire others to reconsider their relationship with the world, encouraging them to seek out direct experiences, challenge societal norms, and find meaning through active participation in life. These thoughts could form the basis of a powerful blog post, essay, or even a series of reflections aimed at motivating others to step out of their comfort zones and engage more deeply with the world around them.

Your experience shapes your reality

I believe our individual experiences shape the way that we view the world and our reality as we know it. Some people, dwell inside, consuming endless news, media, and information that is fed to them through a screen. Other people, have the call to adventure, and travel into the unknown, seeking empirical evidence through direct experience.

Perhaps the truth is outside, under the sunlight, in the real world, embodied reality, where the experiences that you directly have are real and true. There is no amount of information that you can consume, books you will read or things that you will see from the comfort of a seat that will bring you closer to reality.

My fear is that many people live on the sidelines of life, as passive observers, and because of this, there is more division, violence, and conflict than ever. Just yesterday, I was speaking with this older lady, who was very upset about Donald Trump, going on and on about him, some sort of court case, and how he’s going to be a dictator if he’s president. What’s hilarious to me is, I’ve never heard the man speak, in the flesh, seen his face in person, or know anything about him other than the fact that I’ve seen him on TV as a TV star when I was a little kid. To be honest, I’m really grateful that I do not know anything about what’s going on in modern politics these days because it seems like it has people more divided than ever. I think the more you hate somebody, that you do not know in real life, the more mentally unwell you are.

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Real life zombie movie 

Sometimes when I walked on Market Street here in Philadelphia, it feels like I’m living in a real life zombie movie. It’s astonishing how bad the city, or specifically Market Street becomes over time. I’ve seen dead people foaming from the mouth laying out on a bus stop here on this very street, as I love walking this way, practicing street photography here, enjoy the Wanamaker, organ, the reading terminal market, and even pass through the mall. The problem is, there’s so many people on drugs, strung out, bent over, in the middle of the sidewalk, with sores visible, clothing missing, walking around like real zombies. The interesting part is, nobody bats an eye, and we’re all immune to it. Cops don’t even care that much anymore and just kind of let it slide, as they pass by, not wanting to deal with it.

Have you ever read the back of a newspaper, and noticed how many pharmaceuticals are being promoted? Also, it seems like every TV channel, is bombarded by advertisements with pharmaceuticals, medicine, and drugs constantly.

Maybe most people are on some sort of drug, pharmaceutical, or mentally unwell these days. I think it’s also quite obvious when somebody is mentally unwell as you can tell by their physiology, their face, and their physical bodies. You can simply look at somebody, and determine the health of their soul. I think we need to avoid miserable people like the plague, like they are zombies, and simply stay away, ignoring them. This is the harsh reality that we live in these days, but it seems to be best to stick to ourselves, and our immediate friends or family.

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who complain. You hear it all of the time, over the smallest things that have nothing to do with the bigger picture of life. People love to complain and moan, about anything and everything. People often gossip about others, have this animosity towards people that they hardly know, lurking on their social media, or gossiping behind their back. People can’t be alone anymore, in group chats, comment, sections, forums, texting, all day long. Snapchat and Instagram allows people to showcase their lives, in a curated way, that becomes an alternate reality, Zombieland, and fake. We’re slowly becoming zombies, and far from the authentic and true reality that we can thrive in.

Unhealthy nurses

I’ve noticed the trend towards unhealthy nurses. Just walk down Walnut Street, around Jefferson Hospital, and observe the women and men that are wearing scrubs. A lot of them are obese, sickly, anemic, and unhealthy. To me, this is very alarming, as they work within the realm of health, and for the people.

If the doctor, the nurse, is unhealthy, why should I trust your opinion?

My new simple heuristic is, don’t trust the opinion about anything, from anyone, who eats cookies, drinks soda, and consumes any junk food. Just yesterday, I watched as a nurse came out of the office, gorging on chips, cookies, and had a big hoagie in her hand. We are certainly facing a trying time, where our health is on decline, and the things that we consume are mostly to blame.

When you look at a food pyramid, it typically says to eat meat sparingly. Now that we’ve been using this food pyramid, and have been tricked that red meat is bad for us, where has that let us to?

It has let us down the road to unhealthy people, obese people, and very sickly people, walking around this earth. I think that we need to start being more critical about the things that we do, consume, read, or abide by. Think for yourself, more independently, and strategically.

When you consume more red meat, you are more satiated, not hungry, and become healthy and strong. Doesn’t it make you scratch your head, why we were told that this is something we need to consume less of?

Many corporations thrive on the addictive nature of food, whether it’s cookies, chips, or any processed junk that you see all over the place in these grocery stores. If anything, my big advice is to just cut out all sugar, carbs, and processed foods from your diet. Eat more meat and eggs, as this is the ultimate medicine, not these pharmaceuticals, drugs, and things that these obese nurses like to prescribe. 

Pleasure for the sake of what?

We indulge ourselves with gluttony, and hedonistic pleasures, so that we feel better, in a world that is seemingly meaningless.  We cannot simply be, and exist in the present moment because we have been distracted, deceived, and sold a lie, that fame, money, and material things are what we are here to consume and strive to become. 

If humans are simply here to seek pleasure, what is it for the sake of? Is it for the sake of our little tongue, feeling good, enjoying the mouth pleasure? Is it for the feeling of an orgasm, a little bit of gooey stuff, that excretes out of an orifice?

These things are base level, and mean nothing. We need to seek discomfort, and thrive in it, in a way that goes beyond the basic trend towards pleasure, to sacrifice for something greater, more grand than ourselves. Pleasure is easy to come by these days, as we live in the age of abundance, with endless pleasure at our fingertips. If we simply have sex, for the sake of having sex, seeking pleasure, nothing is getting done, and nobody is reproducing. It seems like the majority is sitting on the sidelines of life, like in Wall-E, sitting in front of a TV screen, having robots feed us soda and junk. I won’t be surprised if the next thing that takes over in the next few decades is sex robots, and people stop having relationships altogether, in pursuit of pleasure, from the comfort of their homes, not even having to deal with physical people. 

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My time as a fisherman

I recall my time in the peace corps, in Zambia Africa, working as a fisherman. I ate fish for about a year straight. Nothing but fish, every single night. This was the food that was most available, as I lived on a lake, and had access to the water. We ate every part of the fish, the head, the eyes, the guts, all of it. I got to know all sorts of fish, consumed my fair share to the point where I have no desire to eat it ever again.

You see, in these villages, protein is one of the most critical aspects of nutrition that is needed to give people energy and power. In the morning, people load up on carbs, particularly maize, so that they can fill their bellies, and give themselves that feeling a fullness, to power through the day.

We must recognize the power of food, and the abundance of it that we have here in the states. There are some places in the world, that rely on the catch from a fisherman as their source of protein. People work, simply to eat. They’re not working, to buy things, and flex on others. Perhaps my peace corps service, working as a fisherman, was one of my most paradigm shifting moments, that sets things into perspective for me, and has me appreciate the simple things in life, and the abundance that we have here in the United States.

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Modern entertainment is boring? 

There is no amount of TV shows or movies, video games, that will entertain me. I think that most modern entertainment is boring these days at best. This is where I believe the power of photography is. It’s ability to provide novelty and entertainment within your everyday life beats all modern entertainment. For when you have a camera in hand, you can go out there into the unknown, into the chaos, and find meaning in it. I thrive with a camera, because I know that there is always an opportunity to create something from nothing. I believe that we should become producers, and stop being consumers. The more I produce, photograph, and create, the more entertained, I become.

The world is a stage, and the drama of life, is more entertaining than any thing I can passively observe, and consume, from the comfort of my home. The adventure of a lifetime is waiting, outside your door, just pick up a camera, and go. 

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I could die tomorrow and be happy

At the end of the day, I could die tomorrow, and have lived a full, and meaningful life. Our experiences are what shape our reality, and we should champion them. We should seek to live to the fullest potential, and overcome ourselves. By embracing danger, and adventure, we can become the most interesting person alive. Some people, live their whole lives, as a passive bystander, on standby. But when you are an active participant, in life itself, existing on the front lines of life, you move forward, with strife, on a featherbed, unscathed and untouched, as the sheer curiosity, and courage you possess, will carry you through the chaos. 

Fear not and go forward, with adventure in mind. The adventurous, interesting path, is the best path. Don’t be basic, and conform to the modern world. We must go beyond this place, this, seemingly bamal, mundane, daily existence of life, and champion it, uplifting it to new heights, through your direct experiences, are what shape the way in which you view this life.

Choose the path of most resistance, and don’t take the easy route. When I tell you, the feeling you get, after conquering a mountain, making a photograph, in the midst of conflict, traveling far and wide, or in your backyard, chatting with and meeting new people, going to new places, experiencing things, trying new things, these are the ways in which you can live life, and give it meaning. When you feel that sensation of meaning, it fuels your lust for life. When you have a life full of experience, you are now prepared for death. For you fear not of it. As the next day, is merely a blessing, to be alive. And because of your ability, to champion mankind, you thrive. For you know that life is meaningful, and have lived through experiences, that shapes the most extraordinary reality that you could ever dream of.

Would you grind for diamonds, strip mining, knocking down stone over and over again, in hopes to strike gold or some valuable ore?

The most boring and tedious way to play.

Or would you craft your weapons, find the portal, and defeat the ender dragon as quickly as possible? The most fun and adventurous way to play.

I choose the adventure. I play to slay the boss in battle. Then I’d just build a really nice glass cube house on top of the extreme hill biome, make a farm, and continue slaying the zombies underground.

Friedrich Nietzsche had a nuanced and critical view of the ego. His perspective on the ego is deeply intertwined with his broader philosophical themes, including his critiques of conventional morality, religion, and societal norms. Here are some key points about Nietzsche’s take on the ego:

1. Ego as a Construct: Nietzsche often regarded the ego as a construct, shaped by social and cultural influences. He believed that what people typically consider their “ego” is largely a product of external pressures and expectations rather than a true reflection of their inner nature.
2. Critique of the Ego: Nietzsche critiqued the traditional notion of the ego for being too focused on rationality and self-control. He saw this emphasis as limiting and artificial, arguing that it suppresses the more fundamental and instinctual aspects of human nature.
3. The Will to Power: Central to Nietzsche’s philosophy is the concept of the “will to power,” which he saw as a fundamental drive underlying all human actions. He believed that the ego is often a manifestation of this drive, as individuals seek to assert and enhance their power and influence.
4. Overcoming the Ego: Nietzsche encouraged individuals to overcome the limitations of the socially constructed ego. This involves embracing one’s instincts, desires, and unique potential, rather than conforming to societal norms. He saw the process of “self-overcoming” as essential for achieving true greatness and authenticity.
5. Ego and Individuality: While Nietzsche critiqued the conventional ego, he also emphasized the importance of individuality. He urged people to break free from herd mentality and discover their own path, creating their own values and meaning in life.

In summary, Nietzsche viewed the ego as a complex and often problematic construct that can hinder true self-realization. He advocated for transcending the conventional ego to tap into deeper, more authentic aspects of the self, guided by the will to power and the pursuit of individuality and self-overcoming.

Friedrich Nietzsche often discussed the contrast between the inner and outer worlds in his writings, emphasizing the complexity and depth of the inner world compared to the more superficial outer world. Here are some key points Nietzsche made about the inner and outer worlds:

1. Inner World: Nietzsche believed the inner world is rich with unconscious drives, instincts, and emotions. He viewed it as the true source of human creativity, passion, and vitality. This inner world is where the individual’s true nature resides, often hidden beneath layers of social conditioning and rational thought.
2. Outer World: The outer world, according to Nietzsche, is shaped by societal norms, expectations, and communication. It represents the public persona and the ways individuals present themselves to others. Nietzsche often criticized the outer world for being shallow and inauthentic, masking the deeper truths of the inner world.
3. Authenticity and Self-Discovery: Nietzsche encouraged individuals to delve into their inner worlds to discover their true selves and live authentically. He believed that true greatness and creativity come from embracing and expressing one’s inner drives and instincts, rather than conforming to societal expectations.
4. Conflict and Tension: Nietzsche recognized the tension between the inner and outer worlds. He saw the struggle between these two aspects of human existence as a source of growth and transformation. The challenge is to balance the demands of the outer world while staying true to the inner self.

Overall, Nietzsche’s views on the inner and outer worlds highlight the importance of self-exploration and authenticity in achieving a fulfilling and meaningful life.