To encapsulate a felling or a thought in as few words as possible: this endeavor engendered the literary genre of the Japanese haiku. It also produced the famous four-fold cure (tetrapharmakos) of Epicurean practical wisdom :

• There is nothing to fear from God
• There is nothing to feel from death
• Good things can be acquired
• Bad things can be endured

It sounds simple. It shows the state of mind you can reach after consciously practicing the Epicurean conduct of life by daily reflections and mental exercises under the guidance of an Epicurean coach as Epicurean self-educating communities were practicing it unchanged in 800 years (300 BCE – 500 CE). It has been boiled down to this concentrated formula by the Epicurean community in the famous Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, maybe by their in-house instructor, the philosopher  and poet  Philodemus of Gadara, or his disciples, but more  probably obtained collectively, as happiness itself is obtained.

Today I tried to boil it down further, the way cooks keep on reducing their stock. What I found at the bottom of my mental saucepan was this:

You can dissolve all your fears when you realize how little you really need to lead a blissful life.

My goal was to show not only the end-result but also indicate that it takes your individual decision and efforts to reach that state. The three-letter word ‘can’ must hint not only at the individual’s responsibility in making choices that further his own happiness but also at the fact that it might take the assistance of like-minded friends and experienced guides and coaches to reach that goal. And maybe long years of dedicated practice.

It turned out what I actually heard was ‘ ‘Ravishingly Russian’  http://www.msrcd.com/catalog/cd/MS1311

I am sorry to admit that I am no exception in my Epicurean happiness guide “From Pain to Pleasure: The  Proven Pathway to Happiness” , in the just published paperback edition, too…

Because it is a misquote. I have just found it out from Jules Evans in an article entitled Fake quotes he published on Sunday, 18 December 2011 in his blog.

I also found out from Jules’ blog entry that I am not alone with this misquote. Others widely misquote, too, and not only  Aristotle but also John Stuart Mill, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi.

Commenting on Jules’ article Greg Linser refers us to  ‘Falser Words Were Never Spoken’ by Brian Morton, published in the New York Times who mentions Henry James, George Eliot, Picasso “all of them are being kept alive in popular culture through pithy, cheery sayings they never actually said.”

From now on I guess I’d better stick to quoting people I know firsthand, like myself:

“Check the source before you quote, or you risk to misquote and be exposed.”

Jules Evans, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi,  Greg Linser, Brian Morton,  New York Times, , From Pain to Pleasure: The  Proven Pathway to Happiness, Henry James, George Eliot, Picasso

My friends can buy the little funny Epicurean happiness guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” I wrote with my wife as a paperback either form Amazon or directly from my own eStore, also powered by Amazon through CreateSpace.

I encourage my friends to buy from my eStore, as the royalties paid by Amazon are less than one dollar per sold copy and will not contribute substantially toward paying my huge hospital bills.

I have also reminded my friends that life is too short to spend any minute of it worrying or stressing out ourselves and others and that stress can be deadly. (If they want to have the facts, they can read my stress report – downloadable for free here.)

The one question most people stress out over every year in December is “What presents to make whom?” Those of my friends who have not made a decision yet should seriously consider buying my little funny Epicurean happiness guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” as it it is the ideal present they can give anybody you love and care for, including their precious selves.

If they are on a lower budget this year, they can still get the downloadable eBook version for half of the price of the paperback here

In addition, they can still download the first chapter for free here

The most precious present I received came from my oncologist: as per last medical checkup: I am still cancer-FREE, no recurrence so far.

I gave a talk on Epicurus’s life, teachings, and influence in August this year in Madison, Wisconsin. The professional young man who made the video recording lost most of it. My son edited the footage I recorded myself from a silly angle and he uploaded the first two parts – Epicurus’s life and teachings –  to his ownYouTube channel as it is 34 minutes long and I cannot upload to my own channel anything longer than 15 minutes.

As for the third part, Epicurus’s influence, I still have the slides and the sound recording and I plan to make more slides and record a presentation at home.

My recommendation to my friends was this year to enjoy every single day of their remaining lives in leisurely stress-FREEDOM, quoting Epicurus: “We have been born once and cannot be born a second time; for all eternity we shall no longer exist. But you, although you are not in control of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness. Life is wasted by delaying, and each one of us dies without enjoying leisure.”

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-          first: if happiness consists of the fulfilling of human possibilities then there must be broadly applicable rules for attaining it.

-          second: in this case we can “learn happiness”  by following these rules.

They stressed rather the process and not one or the other event.  A happy life meant for them a contented life a life lived in harmony with their values and tastes. The core elements of happiness were:

- inner peace and freedom (in the sense of not being disturbed by passions)

- physical and psychological independence

How did they achieve this state?

The ancient Greeks strongly believed in practice: “everything is practice” – they used to say. Philosophers ran in fact “happiness schools” to train the mind of their students. They believed that insight helped only when people were trained to apply it. Their goal was to form the student’s character so that he would live a happier and more balanced life. The key was the purposeful repetition of certain experiences.

The central thought of classical philosophy about happiness is today still valid and corroborated by modern science, especially neurobiology: positive feelings are not a matter of destiny. We can and must strive for them.

Do not confuse this concept of happiness with the modern – and unrealistic – idea interpreting it as a pleasure without a history and without costs.

You can find the results of modern scientific research on happiness in Stefan Klein’s book: The science of happiness. http://www.stefanklein.info/en/index_en.html

See also: http://www.gluecksformel.de/links.html – lots of relevant links, most of them in German but some also in English

the full interview (23 min):  http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11977

a 5 minutes cut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOv4KPkUDY

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6611967/not-google-plus

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/08/08/110808on_audio_greenblatt

http://www.politicsofwellbeing.com/2011/06/kalle-lasn-founder-of-adbusters-on.html?spref=fb

Ancient Epicureans had up to 30 “buy nothing days” a month. Even wealthy Roman Epicureans reserved 3-7 days a month for austerity: they slept on the hard floor and ate only bread and drank only water. The sense of this exercise was to keep up their faith in the doctrine that what [is thought by most people as] hard is in fact easy to put up with. It showed them that they can be happy without their belongings, supplies and services – a state pretty often achieved in cases when the emperor wanted their property for his friends and exiled them.

I had periods in my life when I had to live on extremely meager resources and I can say that this fact never affected my mental well being. Even if I don’t need to convince myself of this fact I still keep a bread-and-water day every now and then, just as a reminder of one of the techniques of stress-FREEDOM.

While munching our English muffins on the back porch my daughter told me about the present she is going to make for my cousin. I told her that I admired her rare capacity to think up the kind of present that would make a person happy and then manufacturing it.

“I am a thnky and crafty person” said she “and I like to see the happy faces people make when they get a present from me”.

Details with photo about the typically Wisconsinite present will follow as soon it will be confectioned. I will have to find a toilet paper roll, though, so she can get started on the crafty part.