Epicureanism - A Week in the Pursuit of Pleasure

March 30 - April 5

"Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life" Epicurus as cited by Botton in The Consolations of Philosophy, p.50

Epicureans believe that:

• the pursuit of happiness is the purpose of life
• there is a hierarchy of humans needs; in order to be happy we must first address our primal needs for shelter, food and warmth
• happiness is acquired through:
• the possession of friendship;
• the experience of sensual pleasures;
• the avoidance/cessation of pain;
• ataraxy: freedom from anxieties and the fear of death.
• there is no life after death

Alain de Botton, author of The Consolations of Philosophy, has been accused of grossly oversimplifying philosophical concepts. This has worked in our favour and we will be basing our rules this week predominantly on his sifted version of Epicureanism...

1. Friendship

"Of all the things that wisdom provides to help live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship" Epicurus as cited by Botton in The Consolations of Philosophy, p.57

• Rule: dedicate time every day to maintaining friendships

"Before you eat or drink anything, consider carefully who you eat or drink with rather than what you eat or drink: for feeding without a friend is the life of a lion or a wolf" Epicurus as cited by Botton in The Consolations of Philosophy, p.57

• Rule: always eat in company

2. Meeting basic needs

"... happiness (eudaimonia), according to Epicurus, is ... a form of pleasure in its own right - ... kinetic pleasures involve ... the pleasurable elimination of hunger or thirst. As the need is met, however, the pleasure associated with replenishment diminishes: one does not enjoy eating for replenishment when full." Epicurus; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• Rule: always eat when hungry and only then; enjoy the moment; choose quality over quantity

3. Living an analysed life

"Mankind is perpetually the victim of a pointless and futile martyrdom, fretting life away in fruitless worries through failure to realise what limit is set to acquisition and to the growth of genuine pleasure" Epicurus as cited by Botton in The Consolations of Philosophy, p.70 

• Rule: at the end of each day write down your anxieties. Reflect on their impact on your pursuit of happiness. Are they baseless? What can you do to eliminate them?

March: Epicureanism

Reading list:

Letter to Herodotus by Epicurus, from Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, translated by Robert Drew Hicks

Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus, from Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, translated by Robert Drew Hicks

Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius, translated by William Ellery Leonard

Epicurus; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Takeaways after 7 days

Gotta agree with Geoff - a lot of perseverance was required to get through this week. I was very glad to see Aurelius himself pardoning my failures, for they were many, and they weighed on me (which is another failure, I guess!)

Today I attempted some reflection on my week, with a focus on any lessons learnt. My self-imposed virtuous restrictions directed a lot of my energy over the last 7 days to ticking things off a to-do list. That list still has a lot of things on it, but I'm genuinely happy to have made a dent in it, and I'd like to keep chipping away at it. The 100% focus was obviously too much, but perhaps I can set a somewhat more forgiving routine that none the less schedules mandated daily time to the task. It'll take resolve, but I know I'll appreciate the results. We'll see.

Stay tuned for news of Simon and Geoff's next adventure in philosophy - a new subject and a new reading list should be coming your way soon.

Simon

On Having a Go

With one more day of Stoicism through which to persevere, and it has felt like perseverance, I thought I might reflect briefly on how the week has gone and what has come of it.

We've eaten plainly but not avoided flavour entirely, nor ignored hunger. We've slept on soft beds with pillows and blankets. We've paid little attention to our dress (not much of a change there) but not stepped bravely outside societal norms to meet some utilitarian ideal. We've held our tongues and reflected on our actions. We've avoided (mostly) the idle, shallow pursuits that are usually our daily companions and focused our energies instead on what we knew needed to be done.

Were we successful? Were we good Stoics? Well, we had a go.

As always, I'll let Marcus weigh in on the subject:

"Your attempt was always subject to reservations, remember; you were not aiming at the impossible. At what, then? Simply at making the attempt itself. In this you succeeded; and with that, the object of your existence is attained." (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VI, 50)

Geoff

On the fifth day, did Simon contain his excitement?

This evening I unexpectedly hit a milestone on a personal project I've been putting a lot of effort into for some time now. And I got energetically happy. Couldn't help it. Felt great.

Then I remembered that good Stoics contain their emotions. And that annoyed me, because feeling joyful is nice, so why would Stoics not want that?

The thing about Stoics is they achieve happiness by being virtuous in the moment. Every moment. There's no space to dwell on past virtuousness. Gotta be virtuous again. The time to be happy about my achievement was when I was doing the virtuous things that would eventually lead me there. The virtue was in the doing, not the outcome. When I felt joy this evening, what I wasn't doing, at that moment, was anything virtuous. I was basking, which is inherently self centred, and not virtuous. A good Stoic finds no happiness there.

Simon

Eating Stoically on Day Four

A great deal of Stoicism seems to be about consciously avoiding things that you might enjoy. With this in mind, it can be helpful to think of ways to make such things seem less appealing:

"When meat and other dainties are before you, you reflect: This is dead fish, or fowl, or pig; or: This Falernian is some of the juice from a bunch of grapes; my purple robe is sheep's wool stained with a little gore from a shellfish; copulation is friction of the members and an ejaculatory discharge. Reflections of this kind go to the bottom of things, penetrating into them and exposing their real nature." (Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, Book VI, 13, emphasis added)

Now, I'm talking about Stoics and food but I also can't help but think that either the translator was having fun here or dear Marcus was busy with self talk when he wrote this passage: "Think unsexy thoughts. Think unsexy thoughts..."

This morning I had a smoothie for breakfast. The inherent appeal of this was effectively diminished by its greenness, viscosity and tartness. The greenness was pureed silverbeet. It was a stoic smoothie.A small bowl of chickpeas made a morning snack and plain chicken with quinoa and olives was lunch.While I did go out for dinner it was to a cheap and grimy Chinese restaurant with notoriously indifferent service. I didn't mind. I'm focused on the higher goal of some sort of inner mastery.

While I haven't eschewed meat and flavour entirely, I have drunk only water and eaten mainly with nutrition and energy in mind. The important concept seems to be the value you place on the triviality of sensation, taste in this case. I'm not sure what there is to eat tomorrow but I will attend to it frugally. For now I must focus on what's most important: the present and the virtuous opportunities it affords.

Geoff

Day Three - on the matter of gossip

A good Stoic does not engage in gossip, nor any kind of negative talk behind someone's back. Such talk is unproductive, dishonest, and certainly not virtuous. The pleasure derived from secretly revelling in another person's inadequacies should be anathema to a good Stoic, who achieves contentment and happiness only through actions of purely virtuous intent.

I wasn't a very good Stoic today.

Yesterday I did a reasonably good job of curtailing my involvement in negative conversation. I passively and noncommittally observed a number of opportunities to follow another's lead in gossiping. On a couple of occasions I slipped and started to contribute, but quite quickly caught myself.

Today I had a generally busier and more intellectually challenging day and my mind was quite focussed. I think this focus had a side effect of lowering my Stoic guard, and on reflection I am aware of a number of occasions where I automatically participated in moments of conversation that were not very virtuous.

There is a euphoria that comes with sharing an unflattering story with a fellow conspirator. But it is fleeting and only self-serving within that brief moment. It does nothing to help anyone grow or improve their character or their contribution.

I wasn't a very good Stoic today, but I'll try to be a better one tomorrow.

Simon