Posts by Root304

I am dubious of most rallying cries for 'freedom', or stark summations that me, as a white man in American, ought to view himself as a slave or a peasant because I am not monstrously rich in order to be honest with myself. A lot of people's idea of freedom is not mine, and I would give up liberty to get immense riches and command labor and lives for more genuine safety like less struggle for a roof over my head and food to eat at the drop of a hat. Closer to reality is that I've only ever been a citizen of a Republic with all the rising and falling of fortunes that that entails. Until they start rounding me up for the death camps for my religious views or any other casus belli, I will not live by the stark contrast of "living free" or "dying."

Don't have much patience for video games and I admit my time with video games was a time I look back on with regret and saddness at how isolated, avoiding emotional and body awareness and insular I was; cleaving to substanceless parasocial relationships and generally neglected by family and friend. I generally dislike them as an artform as well as an entertainment medium, but Epicureanism has made me a deeply harsh and biting critic of most art forms like movies, music and storytelling mediums.

Boardgames however are intensely interesting to me and have brought me deep and abidding pleasure, human connection, as well as practicing many different real world social skills like distilling complex instructions, cooperation, hospitality, facilitation, consent, improvisation and so much more. It also gets my butt in gear to give the house the cleaning once over just to have a presentable home for people to visit.

I take the approach of just not desiring many things or elaborate experiences; but the things I do desire I desire deeply, are impactful and more pragmatic: the cultivation of Friendships, arranging my material conditions like jobs and household the way that pleases me and other practices of Epicurean philosophy. I let go of longings that will likely not happen or that are outside of my control or that I ambivalent about happening. Or I shift the longing into something reasonable like my longing for connection to Divinity is now commonplace as the Gods are readily visitable. I make choices to connect with people and for instance, have children, knowing full well that relationships and people do not last and nothing is guaranteed, but genuine human connection is worth the eventual and inevitable pain of seperation and I anticipate it so that I shall suffer in more pleasant ways. I arrange my life at all times easily enough choosing to cultivate Friendships through mutual aid and occassional celebration with friends. When you've got a lot of relationships and schedules and taking care of one anothers families like they are your own and favors for favors, your schedule gets booked up quick, and things like springing for a fancy cheese or a fancy beer every couple of weeks all just gets mixed in not so much with a singular desire from my self but gets mixed with heightening the experience of hospitality and fun with friends.

Was totally onboard with this until that last 30 seconds are so... That is one dread that I still have to shake myself of.

One of my friend groups is doing a Friendsgiving. The wife and kids are going down south for Thanksgiving as her father just started having heart trouble in the last week. My extended family is all scattered to the winds and so I am working some extra shifts at one of my jobs so some other guys can have Thanksgiving off, assuming I get over this flu that's left me bedridden for the past 2 days. I guess either way I'm skipping this Holiday, which is fine as November Eikas was awesome and I've got a mens group starting next week as well.

Thanks Julia. I will pursue exploring human Dopamine and Endorphin systems more thoroughly as naming the systems may offer up some science-based insight as to why I had a sudden shift towards mental wellness while not necessarily needing to change much about routine but in the act of letting go of all ambition and ego-defenses. Perhaps I had "switched pleasure systems" and began using different parts of my brain that were not malformed or dysfunctional. All speculation as I do, but striking for me none the less.

I will only comment further by saying that while I disagree with some of the general attitudes aimed at either system, I respect this formulation if it serves you and will refrain from any defense or critique per your request. Sometimes we do need liberal use of periods as we write the story of our lives and our philosophies instead of endless commas and semi-colons.

Thank you for this post. So much of this rings pertinent and relevant to my own "struggles" with action and inaction while living in katastematic pleasure.

I can be perfectly content just laying about most days without any intoxicants or anything, and in some ways that has been incredibly healthy. Allowing myself to just be and be resoundingly happy when before gnawing doubts, urges, ambitions, senses of shame and comparison - a whole variety of anguish would arise. I've arranged my life pretty blessedly. Working a lovely job where all my hours are within 2 or 3 really long 12 to 10 hours days but manageable and pretty fun, allowing me so much lesiure during the other 4 or 5 days of lazily tending house and carting kids around. I poke around at projects, possible small business ideas or learning complex board game for my game nights with friends. I also do some odds and ends sort of work to supplement my income. All very pleasant and I like the variety of experiences.

But the reality is that I need to do more and prepare for all this unanticipatable change ahead. But I have to anticipate and adapt and already be in more secure positions but I simply cannot abide the anxiety and eventual fear that searching and wondering what is and isn't in my skills set brings about; let alone fears of curbed Human Rights and political violence this American has no real life context to draw from. I simply wish I could not need to think and ruminate and plan so much. Just work my job, make my money to pay the bills and come back to my more thorough state of pleasure.

Thanks for sharing!

I'm more of a history and anthropology sort of person, but I've been exploring sci-fi recently as an exercise to imagine possible pleasant human futures that don't appear to be formulating in our current time and I wondered if some Epicureans of the future would ever join or mount something like the Butlerian Jihad and destroy and ban some future advanced A.I. technology ala Frank Herbert's "Dune" series. I have adapted well to some text based A.I. tools but using it for images, audio and video, and most robotic applications is still deeply disturbing to me.

Some of my earliest insights into EP was the cup graphic. Once you've stopped your cup from leaking through psychological work like EP, and deciding you will keep it filled by living joyfully through arranging one's life as to generally avoid psychological pain firstly and physical pain secondly; as well as fortifying the natural restlessness of ego through securing pleasant relationships, you can be untouched by what most of life throws at you and indeed walk among others feeling as happy as Zeus. I interpret the "absence of pain" to just be a sort of lost in translation or out of context way of saying you can have the "baseline" pleasantness by achieving ataraxia/katastematic pleasure. As long as you are not pained by a poorly arranged life and poorly arranged psyche, pleasure and salvation are easily had. That is both my experience of having experienced ataraxia as well as experincing a rather remarkable salvific psychological effect. Not saying it's the only way or the way to interpret it, but it's how I choose to interpret it as my results speak volumes to me at least.

I also feel like I am driving ever onwards with abidding pleasure in the face of all the tumult, war drums and death rattles, even whilst being a Dad to two young children. I may have a day now and then where I need to deeply reflect and at times formulate something grim and dire that could be taken as a Stoic practice, but I believe there is much teeth lost to us that may have been in non-extant works of Epicurean Philosophy. To face dire forecasts one must adopt a sort of gallows humor and "spitting contempt on life and on those who here vainly cling to it" as VS 47 says. For that I reject the notion that a proper Epicurean life must always aim towards an imitation of the Blessed Death of Epicurus, living long and well and tending to more refined business of reciting our will, in order to have said to have lived as an Epicurean. But I will stop there as I digress.

Don't want to interject too much, as I don't want to derail the great conversation. I just want to say that if any reader is having trouble understanding prolepsis like I did for years, I merely invite thinking a bit bigger about the words associated with it, such as anticipations and understanding it perhaps not just as a decidedly cognitive process but also an expression of material processes.

I don't want to let the discussion pass without recognizing that I believe prolepsis is a very illuminating concept, even more so than developing reasoning from pathos was for me. I've roughly explained elsewhere on the forum the beginning of my thinking that prolepsis has become replacement for what I found to be the vacuous word "consciousness", which making this move tosses out a lot of philosophical false problems related to the baggage associated with that term. I've also been exploring notions of linking prolepsis to ideas of "simulation", the material "soul" and "unconscious" processes outside of thinking. I'm beginning to suspect that a lot about phenomena we experience is based in fundamental principals of recursion, self-reference, anticipation, and incremental and iterative processes quite a long ways down the path of exploring the nature of biological life and "being"; yet to set all that wild-eyed speculation aside it's really nice to see my untrained, often unhinged, formulations getting some much needed tempering by fruitful discussion grounded in the Philosophical tradition.

My thoughts are that if you do not know the nature of Justice, the nature and History of the State and you do not know the methods of effective activism and are unwilling to attempt them; then railing about injustice is a sign for the need to integrate truths about reality via knowledge or therapeutic means. A seasoned activist is more precise and calculating and those who don't care or don't want to try are generally silent. The loudest voices for your own cause are usually the least effective and most likely to be waving a false flag.

Pretty "bah, humbug" about halloween. Dislike the skelingtons everyone puts in their yards. Dislike the classist logic inherent in parents deciding where to go for free candy. Feels gross to me being of modest means, and I'd wish people would use the opportunity to meet people in their own neighborhoods rather than sally off to the richer neighborhoods or in a church parking lot for candy and some Jesus.

Anyway, my neighbor and I have plotted for November 1st to be a big neighborhood party in our backyards. Inviting all these next door strangers over and get to know them better. I do have a cauldron I will be doing a vegetarian soup in and the Texas transplant 2 houses over will open his yard too for some sliders. It should be interesting and I hope it goes over well.

In a Heartbeat

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Kind of a song of my personal journey with Epicurean philosophy. This song with it's bouncey percussion and tension of ideation and rumination and release into realization on the keyboards gives me the notion of the perennial achievement and imminence of the telos: Pleasure. Pleasure of simply being can be had "in a heartbeat." The "you" to me could be the philosophy, or Hedone, me when I am really rocking the katastematic pleasure or my really rad natural and instructive Epicurean wife. Use of sensing and feeling words. Closes with the return to duality, dialectic and "magick" and we return with the ruminating keyboards and anxiety. "All seems strange... My whole life has changed. In a heartbeat. Love is shining through in everything you do. Honey in a heartbeat." Ends with the sound of a heartbeat to indicate the choice is yet still mine.

Lyrics:
Standing next to you
A dream is coming true
In a heartbeat

Feeling's right
I finally see the light
In a heartbeat

Something in your eyes
Has got me hypnotized
In a heartbeat

And near or far
I try to be where you are
In a heartbeat

Wanna laugh wanna sing
Wanna do everything
In a heartbeat

Wanna live wanna be
Where's the spirits are free
In a heartbeat

Keep it up keep it down
Keep it turning around
In a heartbeat

Make it dark make it light
Make it magic tonight
In a heartbeat

It all seems strange
My whole life has changed
In a heartbeat

Love is shining through
In everything you do
Honey in a heartbeat

And something in your eyes
Has got me hypnotized
In a heartbeat

And near or far
I try to be where you are
In a heartbeat

Just wanted to find a place to put this thought together.

I found much fruit in the notion of "bounded recursion" to describe that indeterminancy and waveform happens within a relatively short range of possibilities. Matter cannot take every imaginable structure but a finite number of structures as Epicurus roughly put it.

I also found the notion of "restructive", to coin a word, being a fundamental underlying principal to oppose such ideas of information or seed of function being fundamental. "Re-" to mean happens again endlessly, while "structive" standing for atomic structures with the "con" taken out of "reconstructive" for it's notion of repeating an old form. Atoms restructure into totally different things, not reconstruct into what they were. Lots of pleasant implication in ecological ethics to accept this view.

With these 2 ideas taken together, I found the doctrines on imposing reasoned limitations on vain desires and ideals that extend to infinitity that first drew me to Epicurus to be of paramount importance in my own mental health. Also how repetition of things like hedonic regimen and rereading and writing out one's understanding of the Doctrine to be a way of restructuring our minds for health through pleasure. Thus why Epicurus can still serve as a salve to this day. Epicurus critiques the relentless self-referencing and echo chamber of the recursive functions in the mind as a core problem in Humans. No Original Sin, just an adaptation from some periods in human history where conditions were extreme and out of the box thinking that recursion and rapid iteration probelm-solving processes were required to survive.

I would love to see any Epicurean commentary on or references to myths of echo and Narcissus for example to see if this critique of recursion going on...

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Farewell!

Hello all!

Had a thought while doing some philosohizing...I propose prolepsis is our interal existing working model of how the universe operates and how our bodies integrate. It is the "simulation" of the world and how our bodies work that our bodies are using regularly that shifts and changes with impactful experiences, which is made up of our underlying expectation or anticipations about the world and the, semi-conscious and unconscious workings of the body.

Prolepsis is partly a conceptual tool that can be honed by interacting with language in the study of Natural Science to acquire more accurate expectations or blunted by adopting unreasonable expectations. Also adopting the core tenants of Epicurean Philosophy would be a practice in embodying the teleology of pleasure, to experience a more beneficial ethics.

Prolepsis could also encompass body awarenesses that develop mostly in childhood or other body training exercises like senses of balance and elaborate movement for example. I also have a sense that this underlying model building relates to our whole integration of various parts of "the self" and constructs underlying novel personality and general human quirkiness that makes humans especially pretty distinct, perhap explained materially through environment, Genetic and Epigenetic factors among other things perhaps.

To get poetic, humans are not a simulation. The universe is not a simulation. Our Souls are a simulation run by our bodies to get it all the parts functioning together and effectively navigating the environment. Just a thought...

Eh... My foray into psychedelics was pretty disasterous and almost entirely led to my adoption of Naturalism and Epicureanism. I had the psychedelic ideology in the back of my mind since I was a teenager as something I wanted to pursue someday. Eventually, I tried "mere" marijuana for a very short period of about 2 weeks. Spent the next year in and out of psyche wards because of it and the next 8 years in and out of pyschosis, attempting to piece the mind back together again. Needless to say that whole tree I was barking up has been completely uprooted and turned to kindling in my mind and now makes a pleasant, but roaring fire to which I throw all manner of superstition, magickal thinking and transcendent ideations and impulses onto. Still though I am not opposed to people doing them or opposed to people who do them, I just view their experiences and insights concerning it with very little value since adopting Epicurean Hedonism. It is complete dumb luck that I happened upon the one Philosophy that would singularly be the antidote to my ills...

My experiences with insanity and the residual foul memories and conceptions, generally has me taking the position that if "the supernatural" however one wishes to concieve of it were real, I would still regard it as extremely low value compared to just normal, naturalistic world as I perceive it. Epicurus' animal Gods that carry on formal friendships, self-sustaining activity and all the rest, is just way more relatable and frankly healthier way to view "ideal" beings that we allegedly all for better or worse have notions of in our minds. The theology redeems the whole idea of Gods for me.

Julia

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply!

While I recognize that I have geographic, ethnic and gender advantages in my favor, I also have fortunately known, congregated and am among many poor and frugal folk who understand the true value of a friend. You can make so much happen in terms of material and moral enrichment even with meager means if you indeed hold your friends close and your enemies afar. Living one's life receiving and repaying wiselike, in excess and in kind is a most gratifying way to live under the present conditions.

Quote from Julia

and as a person, I reside within a human, but I am not it, and as such, my body is as much my environment as the flat I use to shelter it, and the society I use to shelter that flat.

I suppose in studying Epicureanism's doctrine of the Soul, I came to see myself as the totality of my body, and the mind as just another piece of it that is important, but I am more expansive than that. Even though some of my body's functions are unconscious does not mean they aren't me, or that I can't apprehend it's thoughts with my mind. The "immortality" of Epicurean friendship surely extends to who and what I am in the world as I appear to others as well. My Father, who has past, was to me not his mind but the way he was received to me through the senses and emotions; smells, feelings, touch, voice, etc. The Epicurean soul must surely include the biochemical, mental and bodily memories between people as well.

As for immortality being a part of Epicurean Theology, I honestly part ways with Philodemus there. Living for exceedingly long times is another fear of mine.

I usually take the approach that it wouldn't take imagining things exceedingly different or extraordinary to get to Epicurean Godhood. If some lower class folks in the Epicurean hayday could get much from the philosophy then blessedness must not be too far out of grasp for me living in the 21st century American context. I also read a lot of more left-wing anthropology, so I usually imagine Gods as some sort of subsistence farming or hunter gathering community; or a culture that reconstitutes their society with the seasons or generationally to continue to live blessedly and in balance with the psychic impulses of the human animal to that end. I think about this more scaled-down vision as a personal and achieveable goal I am working towards i.e. living in a tighter-knit community with friends and not just the nuclear family. Yang Zhu had a particular valorization of the "the ancients" in his context from my limited study of his system, so this look to the past fits with that tradition.

I'm not really too interested in futurism as I find tech integration and most transhuman concepts beyond healing diseases to be pretty disconcerting. I do like a good blanket Star Trek-like vision for futurity if I am considering it, though I am not that familiar or interested in the details of that franchises' lore.

I think Epicurean philosophy applies to humans and other similar enough biological entities no matter where in technological progression they find themselves in. Perhaps it's good practice to contemplate Epicurean Godhood at every stage of development we can imagine: the Blessed Epicurean ancients (and look to those who still live close to that presently) and the Epicurean future, in order to better reason to how we can live an Epicurean present which is accelerating technologically. The theology could be a way to understand that blessedness comes in many varieties and is possible to nearly grasp in most contexts.

I just want to preface this thread by saying that I think there are many really great ways to parent children, but it can be a touchy subject. I hope that we can all respect and learn from each other.

I'm sure many of us are all of one mind that we shouldn't present myths as facts about reality, but I think tying mythos to imaginative play is one way to introduce mythical concepts to children. Imagination play is important at the critical young ages of about 2 to 7. (Here's a Scientific American Article on this.) The inevitability that my kids will at the very least be exposed to religious stories and ideas means I try to be proactive in introducing them to these concepts. Both of my kids are under 8 years old and I use folklore creatures in imaginative play to explore "magic" and "mystery" that they are already exposed to from the broader culture. I bring the kids half-way in on the subterfuge by having them take part in making the magical games playout for their sibiling for example. A gnome, brownie or mermaid I feel is more approachable and not so mentally overpowering as Gods; because modern lore about them and the lore we homebrew, doesn't convey "power over" dynamics, but are more mischieveous or have "power with" dynamics that models the sorts of social power I'd like my kids to exercise. (referencing Mary Parker Follet's work here) I see them both often grappling and playing with notions of "infinity" and huge numbers, and attaching an all-knowing, all powerful personality that could be angry with them to that sort of thought seems a bit cruel to me. Another upside to Epicurean theology here. Folklore creatures also tend to be more natural-world oriented which has drawn my kids' attention away from the magical worlds in media like video games and movies towards creating a little magic for them out in the natural world. So in this way I feel like I am teaching them that the magic that exists is what we create for ourselves and other people.

As for the afterlife, that one is a bit trickier as my oldest has a bit of death anxiety. So even though I generally tell them many things leading to the idea that we cease to be after death and the benefits of believing that, they do explore afterlife narratives. I think it's fair for a young one to entertain these idealistic notions in coming to terms with death. Dreams are often a big part of discourse with the kids so I will talk about how the deceased, as well as mythical creatures, can appear in our dreams, but I don't tie these things to anything supernatural. These things are part of the human experience, so I should talk about them as possiblities. Also, that we all change over time and our former selves "die" as we take on new roles or resonsibilities in this life; hinting that this may explain some concepts about the afterlife. I suppose in these ways I have the kids entertain the possibility of idealistic myths, but also naturalize these ideas.

Don
That all sounds great! I am doing UU with my two as well right now, and we also try to do nature hikes and museums trips. Being intentional about meal time seems very Epicurean to me. I try to do something similar though we don't always have the time, schedule or energy to make it happen every night. We do try to make it special when we do eat at the table with less direct, dimmer lighting and have a candle going with some music. I'm reading a book about the Danish notion of 'hyyge' (HOO-gah) which (as I understand it) describes the atmosphere of coziness and coviviality with good company that also encompasses ideas about lighting in a living or social space, and I am having fun trying to get the lighting in my house just right for meal time. Maybe another thread exploring that sometime...

Anyway, this is getting long. I'll leave it at that for some more back and forth before introducing any new ideas. Feel free to jump right in to more decidedly Epicurean parenting discussion. I will be gathering my thoughts on that for another post soon.

Quote from Nate

That is a great question for members of this forum whom are parents. Many of whom are raising and educating their children from an Epicurean perspective without any overwhelming challenges besides simply being parents struggling with the normal challenges of raising children. One difference, among others, would be that we would not raise young members of an Epicurean society to entertain the possibility of idealistic myths, like an afterlife.

If anyone would like to philosophize about Epicurean parenting, start a thread or PM me! Maybe I'll start a thread about it if there is any interest, as I would like to expound and contest that last statement in the quote.