Epicurean Pleasure

Stoicism Is For Beginners — Epicurus Prevails

Stoicism Is For Beginners — Epicurus Prevails

Stoicism says “endure the struggle of life”.

Nietszche fell and died on that sword.

We will not.

Religions are comfortable with a stoic focus on negativity and self-sacrifice.

Epicurus new better.

Epicureanism brings life supremacy.

Rise from your knees.

“The highest good is pleasure” said Epicurus

For just as Dr Frank R Wallace wrote in Zonpower, Quantum Crossings:

“Here comes Prosperity, Excitement, Romance From Aeschylus, Sophocles, Epicurus”.

But doesn’t pleasure lack the cold rational logical virtues of Stoicism?

Isn’t the pursuit of pleasure superficial… even immoral?

Au contraire mon ami (on the contrary my friends).

Everything right and good comes from Epicurean pleasure.

Here, you’ll see.

Only decline and death comes from Stoic endurance.

And no one in their rightful mind wants that.

As Thomas Jefferson, (yes, author of the US Declaration of Independence) wrote:

“As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Short, 1819

Not the pleasure of hedonist materialist sensuality, with its unnatural excesses that leave one dissatisfied with self-destructive addiction.

Rather, a pleasure that results from “freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind” - Epicurus

Epicurus taught that pleasure (and Aristotelean ‘happiness’) manifests from a trifecta of:

1. Freedom from physical pain (aponia) and freedom from mental anguish (ataraxia).

2. Friends that share progress to celebrate the natural joys of life.

3. Reflection (an analyzed life) in the afterglow of activities that resolve constraints, conflicts or tensions.

A pleasure that culminates not in some jacked up meandering exhilaration, but a tranquility felt through the rightness of peace in the moment.

“The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain.” - Epicurus

Nietsche sought but never grasped the difference of Stoicism and Epicureanism. Nor has lifestyle experimenter Tim Ferris (author of 4 Hour this and that).

Stoic Frailty

In opposition to Epicureanism, Stoicism places virtue above pleasure.

To Stoics, virtues are goods in themselves.

Specifically: Wisdom, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.

They are their own rewards.

Cyborg-hopeful effective accelerationists (e/acc) would be quite content with that.

To Epicurus, a virtue is whatever helps you attain pleasure. Pleasure as the ultimate human experience.

Stoics, just as the misguidance of Buddhism, sought to endure a life of misery, suffering, pain. To transcend a world of pain through the virtue of acceptance and toleration.

To those silly stoics, pleasure is only preferred, but not the objective of a good life. Serenity as a fortunate afterthought, not a primary goal.

In their misguided folly, their version of a good life does not require either freedom from pain nor close connection with friends.

To endure the struggle becomes the Stoics chief aim and their most noble of characteristics, amidst a hopeless divine comedy.

This 2000 year old upside down world of decline and death is the result.

Time To Rewrite Our Future Past

It is time to write a new chapter of human experience.

To recognize a hard-impact truth that sustainable holistic pleasure is only achieved through the elimination of unnecessary pain.

And through modern tools, technologies and techniques, we can eliminate pain down towards zero as we cross into an accelerated future of innovation, abundance, and right mental attitude.

Stoic endurance becomes merely a stepping stone, an obstacle to be overcome and vanquished, towards the tranquil pleasures of freedom, friends and reflection.

Epicurean virtue is whatever brings us pleasure by satisfying 2 out of 3 types of desire.

The 3 Types of Epicurean Desire

1. Natural and Necessary

2. Natural and Unnecessary

3. Unnatural and Unnecessary

It is natural to seek healthy living, healthy food, shelter that provides protection from the elements and a peaceful 8 hours of rejuvenating sleep each night. Protection from harm and the companionship of likeminded friends.

It is unnatural to pursue desires of vanity: power over others, wealth beyond tranquility, fame beyond friendship.

The Risks of Unnatural Desire

Unnatural desire leads us to addictions and obsessions that separate us from tranquility.

There becomes no limit to irrationally hedonistic pursuits, and hence unsatisfying obsessions, which only leads to perpetual dissatisfaction, and hence continued mental anguish and disturbance.

Quite the opposite of Epicurean pleasure as found through the tranquility of removing unnatural and unnecessary desires, constraints and obstacles.

Epicurus was a hedonist, but a sensible one.

2 States of Epicurean Pleasure

At first, kinetic pleasure.

The pleasure of activity, of movement that advances us towards achievement, with progress made to resolve tensions, create values, remove obstacles, and eliminate disturbances.

A second pleasure then results. Epicurean ‘katastematic’ pleasure.

The proverbial cigarette after sex. But nothing toxically harmful.

After an activity is complete, it follows a state of contentment and satisfaction.

A static tranquil satiated pleasure with absence of pain, lust, hunger, drive, or disturbance, providing a gateway into deeper tranquil happiness.

Friends… and Foes

The worst of people are those who seek unnecessary and unnatural pleasures at ever more extreme levels.

This includes fame for self glorification, financial fortune beyond utility, and power over men.

Epicurus was the original Ayn Rand in identifying the second-hander who lives through the opinion of other people:

Epicurus says "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich."

Heretical?

Yes!

Epicurus stance is fundamentally individualistic.

Attacked by Church and Synagogue, the word Epikoros became the term used for ‘heretic’ in the Jewish Mishnah (written in the first few centuries CE).

The Roman poet Lucretius proudly referred to Epicurus as the "destroyer of religion".

2000 years after Epicurus, Nietzsche lamented that ‘god is dead’. Just as Epicureanism was making a revival in the Age of Enlightenment, leading Jefferson to observe it was “everything rational in moral philosophy”.

Being Epicurus

Work only for the purpose of collaboration with friends or towards meaningful purpose, never for fame or financial fortune.

Reflect on past, present and future pleasures.

Do not live only in the moment, for we are temporal beings, able to access and draw in the future, while reveling and benefiting from the past.

Those rational and emotional perspectives and foundations provide us with new fuel to embody freedom from all addicting negatives in today’s degraded culture.

Remember:

Self-discipline. Strong friendships. Simple living.

Embody Epicurus

Epicurus was a person, hence the word Epicurus is rightly a proper noun.

But re-purposing his name as an eponym or epithet, to be epicurus is any person today wielding the tools of Epicureanism.

You are epicurus when you embody the traits of Epicureanism.

We are Epicurus reincarnate when we pursue and achieve the pleasure of tranquility.

Own it.

We are not merely Epicurean.

We are epicurus with conviction and in totality.

I am Epicurus.

You are Epicurus.