stressFREEDOM vs. career
Epicurus considered that it was a true opinion to believe that happiness was to be found in the simple life and retirement, a false opinion to think it lay in wealth, power, or glory – so it is normal for us Epicureans to be unambitious in money- and power-related issues.
Other cultures are less congruent: they preach e.g. that “The love of money is the root of all evil.” [1. Tim. 6, 10] and that “It is as easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle as it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” [Matthew 19:23]. And yet they are surprised if somebody takes their moral rules seriously and tries to follow them.
I grew up in another hypocritical culture under the so called communist state religion. Money was less of an issue there than “power and glory”. They preached the equality of all but in practice they produced a new privileged class for the few.
At 16 I wanted to become a journalist and started working for a youth weekly. It soon turned out that the censors can turn an article or a report to the contrary of what I wanted to say. They also expected me to join the communist party and follow 2 or 4 year courses of ideological “studies”. So at 17 I gave up this career plan of mine.
At the University they proposed that I do postgraduate studies and join the faculty. This could have implied an obligatory communist party membership and being an informant of the secret police (giving them information about my friends, neighbors, colleagues, even family members) so I chose to go to a village and teach there. As long as you did not aspire to a leading position you could get along and stay honest at the same time.
We meet at class reunions and those who chose to collaborate with a régime they actually hated do not seem to be happy or satisfied. Many of them turned to alcohol, some of them committed suicide. Some are simply ostracized.
Some of us managed to flee to West Europe or America or Israel. The majority of these ex school mates fell victim to the rat race and now they are either burned out (if they were “financially successful”) or consider themselves losers and feel ashamed of it.
A minority of 5-10% refused to bargain their tranquility for money resp. status and power - no matter whether they went on living under the communist state religion or opted to follow the capitalist state religion. They are artists or craftspeople or small entrepreneurs.
I wonder if the decision is any easier today for those young people who are aware of the option to choose stressFREEDOM instead of career.
why bail out hunger?
We all know that satisfying the basic needs is key to a good or at least tolerable life: you cannot be happy if you are dying of hunger.
We also know that there are enough resources to eradicate hunger for ever from the face of the earth and those who do the maths ask this question:
Could Just 4% of the Wall Street Bailout End World Hunger?
http://www.ecosalon.com/could_just_4_of_the_wall_street_bailout_end_world_hunger/
I am happy for the question mark, because just having the resources will not solve the problem – which is a problem only for those dying of hunger, of course.
No matter how much money there is, as long as
- there is no will to spend it on food for the hungry
- the employees of the government agencies or the NGOs who distribute the funds are corrupt and put that money or large parts of it into their own pockets
- some governments systematically kill their own co-citizens – not only through starvation but also actively shooting them
there will be no eradication, yea not even serious mitigation of hunger.
The mass murder through letting people starve to death will go ahead as it always has since history is being recorded. The number of the victims has grown exponentially – but who cares?
The larger context is – as we also know: overpopulation. But who cares to go one step further and stop the exponential growth of world population through appropriate programs.
the cheapest vaccine against swine flu panic
I have just received an email from one of my German friends about the connections between the swine flu “pandemic” and the persons and companies that profit from it. I never pass on emails of common interest without googling the topic a bit and in this case I could not find convincing evidence pro or contra the claims that the “pandemic” panic has been propagated out of financial interest of a certain circle of persons and their companies.
Therefore I will just stick to my 2300 year old Epicurean principle: “mens sana in corpora sano”, i.e. to strive for “a healthy mind in a healthy body.”
As I have never taken vaccine against any kind of flu (that kills about 10,000 people in Germany every year, i.e. roughly twice as many as killed in raod accidents) so far and I will not make an exception for the swine flu either. The statistics do not support any call for action that would justify the loss in MH-ROI (mental health return on investment): my peace of mind, tranquility, stress-FREEDOM, ataraxia.
The vaccine against the swine flu is expensive, it may have unpleasant or even dangerous side effects. The vaccine against the swine flu or any other panic generated by the media industry is cheap, pleasant and available for each and all: good, old, proven practical Epicurean philosophy.
Epicurean choices of attitudes and actions
Epicurus’s “Authorized Doctrines” (Kuriai Doxai) is practically a guide for the choice of attitudes toward the essential things in the art of living happily.
Epicurus drew a clear distinction between
- choosing a basic general attitude (diathesis) toward action in a given sphere and
- choosing to do or not to do a given thing within that field.
Thus Epicureans were trained to make these two choices.
They were trained, for example, to first choose what attitude they will assume towards, for instance, death, the gods, pleasure and pain, necessity, fortune, political life, food, fame and friendship.
The choice of a basic and general attitude, however, by no means abolished the necessity of making individual decisions.
The proper attitude toward pain, for instance, is to regard it as inherently evil and to be avoided; nevertheless, in the individual case the lesser pain, such as that of the surgeon’s knife, is endured for the sake of the greater good.
Again, the proper attitude toward food is to prefer a simple diet, but this does not preclude and even approves the occasional indulgence.
In a series of articles I will touch upon those topics that are considered as possible sources of stress and therefore can act as happiness blockers. By showing the attitude Epicurean practitioners applied over 800 years, I hope to help today’s happiness-seekers to escape from the most dangerous happiness-blocker: stress.
articles on Epicurean choices and avoidances under construction
At the moment I am working on two series of short articles in simple language for the same category of non-academic non-superstitions happiness seekers:
- Epicurean choices of attitudes and actions
- Epicurean virtues implemented
The Big Book of Humanity
Jaakko Wallenius is recruiting people for his project “The Big Book of Humanity” in Facebook addressing primarily the non-academic non-superstitious readers.
Please check it out and see how you can support this noble endeavor:
http://www.facebook.com/friends/?id=100000249099074&view=everyone#/group.php?gid=179027371432&ref=mf
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