ambition is counterproductive for pleasure production
My wife and my daughter made me a joint Christmas present, David Sedaris’ book ”Me Talk Pretty One Day “and I started reading the shortest short story practically during the breaks of our Mad-Libs game laughing out loudly (LOL) occasionally, i.e. about every 23 seconds.
Between the age of 16 and 26 I was convinced that I would become a brilliant short story writer and stopped to simply and purely enjoy the short stories I was reading. Instead, I started studying the techniques used by the authors.
After having given up this ambition I could just relax and enjoy them again.
About two or three years ago I chanced upon Sedaris’ “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” in an airport bookstore but the book mysteriously disappeared as soon as I got back to Germany and miraculously reappeared again as I unpacked the cardboard box with my most beloved books in America. My wife and daughter must have seen it on my night stand and heard me chuckle while reading it so they decided to add another volume to my pleasures.
While enjoying every single sentence I remembered DeWitts’s words:
Epicureanism presented two fronts to the world, the one as repellent as the other was attractive. Its discouragement of the political career was repellent to the ambitious, its denial of divine providence to pious orthodoxy, and its hedonism to timorous respectability. Its candor, charity, courtesy, and friendliness were attractive to multitudes of the honest and unambitious folk. (Epicurus and His Philosophy)
…and I felt happy to belong to that multitude:-)
red wine improves the pain-pleasure balance
For yesterday’s CT scan I had to drink a bottle of barium and go without breakfast but then I had to follow the no-carbohydrate/high-protein diet recommended by Dean’s Health System for the day prior to the PET scan exam, including the red wine.
On the pain side I had both yesterday and today the intravenous injections of tracers and I have deep aversion against the pain caused by the needle piercing my veins.
But the scanning itself caused no pain at all and after the exams I indulged in gormandizing an amazing variety of cookies brought by a friend. Three of them definitely resembled some of the cookies made by my mom (havasi kifli, linzer gyűrű and I can’t remember how the third one was called), Just like the Danish cookies my daughter baked yesterday with another friend of ours, which were almost replicas of the crisp doughnuts known as “csőröge” in Hungarian.
old CDs, new books and surprising discoveries for pleasure
I decided to listen to the music on my old CDs for which I never found time before having been diagnosed with cancer. Now every evening after dinner I sit down in a rocking chair with a glass of wine and with mz wife we listen to Bobby MacFerrin, Al di Meola and all the nostalgic stuff I managed to get over to America from Europe.
Two years ago I had to dispose of about 80% of my books due to mildew and last December I had to make another severe selection of the rest.
Luckily the library system in Wisconsin allows me to request books from any library in Dane county so I started reading the books I missed (out of youthful revolt against compulsory reading, like Anatole France) or could not get before.
Once I saw a report about Tristan da Cunha and have been fascinated by the way they organized their community on the remotest island.. Reading Elisabeth MacKay’s “Angry Island” I was surprised to find out that they had a dance called “The Pillow Dawnce” which is astonishingly similar to the Romanian folk dance called “the little pillow” (“perinitsa”, pronounced something like perry NEEtsa) I was sometimes invited to dance by my Romanian friends.
How similar the expression of similar emotions and intentions can be in so widely remote cultures!
ECOL – Epicurean Conduct of Life™ stressFREEDOM coaches and therapists?
Since they found out about my cancer some of my friends and ex-coachees suggested that I finish and publish my ECOLOG - Epicurean Conduct of Life Orientation Guidebook™ . Others think it would be more helpful if I fully developed and made accessible a course for ECOL – Epicurean Conduct of Life™ stressFREEDOM coaches and or therapists.
My answer is:
I am firmly convinced that it could help lots of stressFREEDOM seekers, stressed adults and teenagers find their peace, supervisors and employees resolve their conflicts if they used the 2300 year old techniques I re-discovered, re-engineered and modernized.
I might even find the time to edit and review my notes.
But: I am not sure I will have time and energy left enough to
- coach and train the ECOL – Epicurean Conduct of Life™ stressFREEDOM coaches™ and stressFREEDOM therapists™
- coordinate the process of their certification
- set up the organizational structures needed to ensure the quality of instruction and supervision of practice of ECOL – Epicurean Conduct of Life™ stressFREEDOM coaches™ and stressFREEDOM therapists™
They countered that this would be feasible with support from committed laymen and experts.
I believe they are right but I am not sure that they will find a committed team for this project.
At least most probably not in my (seemingly more and more limited:) lifetime…
Also: I am not convinced that people know that stressFREEDOM is a constitutive element of a happy life. The prevalent education systems and media make them believe that in order to be happy they should strive for “success’ by being better than others and accumulate more possessions or buyable experiences than their neighbors. Nobody teaches them that the moment they decided to compete they have already lost…
“carpe diem” instead of soul-searching for children?
Since my rare but aggressive little skin cancer was staged as “micro-metastasized” (meaning something between stages IIIA and IV with a survival prognosis of 50-65% in the first two years) I have become much more aware of the value of each day. This is normal for me in my predicament but I am trying to let others learn something about it, too, first of all, my children. (My wife and I have chosen not to name my disease to them at this point, so they do not start getting upset about the possibility of losing their father shortly after having lost their mother to a mental disease – on top of having changed their “country” for the second time.)
This is no easy enterprise since my children are no different from other children of their age (9 and 12) structuring time around the present-laden knots of Christmas, Easter, Birthday, Halloween. Luckily I do not have to start from zero. My daughter is taken to bed alternatively by my wife and by me each evening and part of the ritual is her remembering what the best thing that happened to her on each day was. We have extended the topic range now to mentioning all the good things that happened. If there are “not so good” things mentioned we talk about the chance of them happening again and whether she can do anything about it.
This little “spiritual exercise” is very far from the Ignatian Examination of Conscience I was taught by Catholic priests and nuns or the other Christian soul-searching practices that teach the children how sinful they are. It teaches them (or so I hope) the Epicurean joy of adding to our happiness account the mental pleasure of remembering pleasurable events and teaches them that there is something good to be experienced each day.
The part about “what was not so good and what can I do about it in the future?” might seem to be more in the Stoic and modern motives analysis culture tradition but we know that the Epicurean communities spent considerable time trying to improve themselves and each other by practicing how to speak honestly even when telling your mind might imply the risk of retaliation by someone stronger (parrhesia) and this practice must have been very much like what we do today in self-improvement life coaching or stress-communication training.
Now all I have to do is to extend the practice also to my prepubescent son…
a few words about advertising(PP2)
Here’s the second sequel of my Epicurean happiness guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” (PP2)
SLAVERY (2)\
A FEW WORDS ABOUT ADVERTISING
Attempts to pressure us to purchase a certain product or patronize a particular business are everywhere: television, newspapers, magazines, on the Internet, in the names of stadiums and arenas, on cars and trucks, clothing, on a few foreheads, radio, eating and drinking establishment restrooms, and I’m sure other places I haven’t even thought of. Advertising is the only way people who make things can tell us about them so we will buy their things and make them rich.
That’s not such a bad idea if the companies are advertising something relevant to our basic needs, like underwear, socks, toothpaste and ice cream. That’s somewhat like a public service, in a way. But advertisers create a culture of consumerism. They have taken on a responsibility for creating needs where there are none, i.e., cunningly creating a void, then jumping in to fill it for us supposedly lame-brained consumers. Advertisers can be obnoxious and heavy-handed and irritating and downright stupid sometimes, but they’ve learned that that is what works. You and I and all our friends listen to them telling us what our needs are and volunteering to meet them for us — but act fast! This special offer expires at midnight! — and boom! We buy the product.
Case in point: During the summer of 1975, a very creative fellow from California marketed stones, which he called Pet Rocks, in little cage-like cardboard boxes along with a “Pet Rock Training Manual,” for which he charged $3.95. Pet Rocks became an amazing fad — more than a million were sold before the fad died out five months later. Do you think any of those million people were thinking in April, Gee, dogs are messy — I sure wish I could have a rock instead?
Unfortunately, most products feed into people’s fears and present themselves as ways to assuage those fears. Afraid of not being stylish enough? Thin enough? Fit enough? Young enough? Fast enough? Not being entertained as well as you deserve? Not getting the attention you deserve? Are you afraid that you might have a social disease like bad breath or bloodshot eyes or dark circles under your eyes? Do you feel inferior or embarrassed because your cell phone doesn’t take ultra-high-resolution pictures like your neighbor Larry’s does, or because your whites aren’t white enough?
If you lived in a culture that banned all advertising, do you think you would come up with these self-disparaging thoughts on your own? I didn’t think so.
By the way, if an endorsement of a product or service from one of your favorite rock stars or a famous athlete grabs your attention, don’t let it cloud your better judgment. Just remember that the already-wealthy celebrity is being paid very large sums of money for reading from a prepared script with feigned enthusiasm.
<end of sequel 2 – to be continued>
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