How to Be Happy Lesson #9: I Am Epicurius Fellow
Hoo hum, another ancient Greek who knew how to be happy. This one is Epicurus (341–270 BCE), a philosopher and scientist (weren’t they all?). Epicurus would have fit in quite well with the humanists today as he took an empiricist view of knowledge and a naturalistic view of evolution. He also described everything in nature as consisting of atoms (one of the first to do so).
Regarding happiness, he advocated what many people then may have considered radical, not to mention many people today. Here’s a capsule description from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
He [Epicurus] believed that…he could disprove the possibility of the soul’s survival after death, and hence the prospect of punishment in the afterlife. He regarded the unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as the primary cause of anxiety among human beings, and anxiety in turn as the source of extreme and irrational desires. The elimination of the fears and corresponding desires would leave people free to pursue the pleasures, both physical and mental, to which they are naturally drawn, and to enjoy the peace of mind that is consequent upon their regularly expected and achieved satisfaction.
In terms of his life philosophy, Big E was a hedonist, writing that “pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we always come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.” But don’t get too excited by this. As the POT (Pursuit of Happiness) history tells us, “his view of pleasure is far from the stereotypical one”:
For Epicurus, the most pleasant life is one where we abstain from unnecessary desires and achieve an inner tranquility by being content with simple things, and by choosing the pleasure of philosophical conversation with friends over the pursuit of physical pleasures like food, drink, and sex.
Hmmm. That raises a number of questions. First, if he believes we should abstain from pursuing gustatory delights, why did he allow a fabulous foody website to be named after him? If you ask me, “Our 41 Most Comforting Noodle Soups” sounds like a surefire path to joy and contentment.
Second, how do we elevate our conversation, which, at least in this country, hovers around the level of “Kate vs. Meghan: Princesses at War?” to arguing the merits of Thomism versus those of the logical positivists? The only way I can see this happening is if all media stations and websites suddenly change their programming to something like an endless loop of Joseph Campbell documentaries or Sister Wendy art reviews.
Epicurus would assert that the only way to lasting happiness is to be independent of all external things. If you put stock in “unnecessary pleasures” like chicken noodle soup (now there’s an unexpected pun), “you will be 1) upset when you lose these things, 2) anxious to obtain them, and 3) continually pushed onwards towards greater luxuries and hence greater anxiety and disappointment.”
In his favor, Epicurus valued friendship and socialization highly as a way to find happiness. However, his ideal society is one that eschews crass physical pleasures. I think he’s wrong there. So, here is How to Be Happy Lesson #9: Whenever possible, invite friends over for conversation and noodle soup. After all, this is one instance where you can have food for thought and eat it [the soup, that is], too.
(Image: Dante Alighieri meets Epicurus in his Inferno in the Sixth Circle of Hell, where he and his followers are imprisoned in flaming coffins for having believed that the soul dies with the body, shown here in an illustration by Gustave Doré.)
(Published originally on RatBlurt™, February 6, 2019. Also, be sure to check out my TNTBAD (Try Not to Be a Dick) website and blog. Thanks!)
