Now I opened the book randomly and the first thing I saw was that he mentioned the Cynics and the early Stoics as ‘Pre-Socratics’ (page 53). This is like saying that the H-bomb was a pre-A-bomb or World War II was  pre-World War I while his book’s cover proudly states that ‘Lou Marinoff, Ph.D., is a philosophy professor at the City College of New York, a pioneer of the philosophical counseling movement in North America, and president of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association.”

Shlomit Schuster said that Marinoff’s book and activities caused a “worldwide embarrassment for the profession” . I should say that it caused a worldwide embarrassment for two professions:  both for philosophers and for philosophical counselors.

I was curious to see what Marinoff is doing  20 years after having started causing the worldwide embarrassment and was surprised to see that he is still churning out his ‘certifications’  to anyone willing to pay $800-1200 for a 3 day session.

I don’t seem to have grasped yet that this is the land of boundless possibilities.

Maybe because I am sort of “pre-Marinoff”?

“pride is an inward directed emotion that exemplifies either a high sense of one’s personal status or ego (i.e., leading to judgments of personality and character) or the specific mostly positive emotion that is a product of praise or independent self-reflection.” (Wikipedia)

Especially Epicureans should be ashamed of it and work hard at getting rid of it as soon as possible since its ugly head indicates an over-inflated ego or a dangerous vulnerability to praise. If independent self-reflection should lead to pride one ought to improve one’s self-reflective skills. Urgently.

I can’t help feeling proud of my friends, though.

It took me over forty years to understand that I don’t understand the correlation between my needs, my desires and the way I satisfy those desires, resulting in stressing myself, my  friends and family, my coworkers and supervisors, clients and suppliers. It took me another five years to read all the relevant books on Epicurean life techniques and happiness studies to work my way out of the jungle and another five years to hone my tools by using them to set people free of their self-defeating beliefs and  unhealthy habits and help them dismantle the walls they build between themselves and their pathway to happiness through congruence and stress-FREEDOM. It took me another year and the invaluable support of my wife to write a wise AND funny book for those who are interested in spending the rest of their lives walking toward their own happiness instead of working for their own or someone else’s greed.

My friends, however, must have been born wise and don’t seem to need the distilled fruits of hard-earned practical wisdom packed in nicely wrapped palatable pieces of advice. They must be champions in analyzing their desires, in satisfying their natural needs through synergistic satisfiers, in keeping their lifestyle and behavior patterns in line with their values and attitudes, serenely threading down their own proven pathways from pain to pleasure, producing their own happiness though congruence and stress-FREEDOM.

I must assume they do all this judging from the absence of their comments on the excerpts of my book that I have been publishing in sequels in my blog. The only topic they mildly reacted to was sequel 15: “How Is It Possible To Find Romantic Love? “

Complete strangers ask me when  will my book be available in print and on kindl, when will I start training and coaching sessions on the Galenian Epicurean Conduct of Life, or at least publicly speak about it. (Which I don’t’ know yet. I still have to take care of my health and the happiness of my family.)

But it’s a relief that my friends are doing well, confidently threading their own pathways toward happiness.( Or what they believe is happiness?)

It’s a shame to feel proud but who could help not being proud of them? (Maybe Epicurus?)

Bertrand Russell shows deep understanding of Epicuranism and Epicurus as a philosopher in his “History of Western Philosophy”.

Yet in “The Conquest of Happiness” – a wonderful litlle book of Epicurean inspiration – he ignores Epicurus almost totally. (He does NOT disparage him, though, as Epicurus did Nausiphanes.)

Does anybody have a clue why the basically Epicurean Russell ignored Epicurus in this work?

This is the question I have just ported on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=14290&uid=86711477873#!/topic.php?uid=86711477873&topic=14290

My aunt sent us from Melbourne a clock that has the shape of Australia. My daughter was very happy because she could tell me the time without having to refer to boring digits: “it’s long Darwin short Sydney”

I must admit that it took me some time (and a walk to the map) until I grasped the deeper meaning of this announcement. (Yes, it was 5 p.m.)

He thought I would prize the scientific benefits of his addiction, and I almost did.  But then I remembered that I am his homeschooling teacher so I gave him the assignment to write a report on raccoons and how to keep them out of garbage cans.

Who are the winners – excepting the cardio-vascular and the watch-maker industries?

 http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,596705,00.html#ref=rss

PIED PIPER PROPOSAL

Berlin’s Poor Should Catch Rats, Says Politician

A Berlin politician has come under fire for suggesting that poor people should be encouraged to catch rats by offering them €1 per dead rodent. The intriguing idea entails some gnawing practical problems and has been called “inhuman and cynical”.

Picture the scene — hundreds of poor people armed with clubs chasing rats through the streets of Berlin.

There’s something Dickensian about the notion, but it has been proposed by a Berlin politician who is now being criticized for suggesting that the city’s poor should be enlisted to tackle the growing rat infestation in the center of the German capital.

———–

The proposition could be made Swiftian by requiring the poor not only to catch and kill the rodents but to cook and eat them as well. This version would have considerable

• economic effects: the food needs requirements of the poor would go down dramatically, saving the city council millions of euros
• ecologic effects: recycling of the rodents would shorten the food chain and lower the energy costs necessary for finding, transporting and preparing non-rodent food
• stress-FREEDOM effects: the rodent hunters and eaters would not have to worry about their next meal

For the above reasons we support the politician’s sagaciously modest  proposal and hope that other politicians and CEOs (especially of banks) will follow our advice in adopting the extended version.

It has taken two months and a half for the American politicians to realize that the Georgian politicians are no exception:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,578273,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,579013,00.html

 My suggestions for making the German Autobahn safer and stress-FREE are:

1. Germany should adopt finally a speed limit – like every other single state. In order to preserve the spirit of adventure the limit should be fixed at

• 200 km/h (124 mph)for cars and
• 100 km/h (62 mph) for skateboarders.

 2. The traffic should change from the right to the left side of the roads. This transitions should be made gradually:

• first the heavy trucks
• then the skateboarders
• at last the rest

 2,500 red haired people attended the Redhead Day in Breda, the Netherlands, on Sept. 7, 2008 The festival gathers natural redheads and their “non-redhaired partners, children and admirers” every year:.http://www.roodharigen.nl/ . The American http://realmofredheads.com/ counts almost  3000 members.

I wonder when will the stress-FREEDOM adepts be willing to come out of their Epicurean closets. After 800 years of flourishing (roughly from 300 BCE till 500 CE) they were forced to go underground, their clear ideas were partly stolen, distorted and ridiculed, and congruent practice of simple life forgotten.  

In the last 30 years there is a rising consciousness of sustainability issues and people might just discover that Epicurean simplicity might be the medicine for lots of physical and mental diseases caused by stress. Communication specialists will have to deliver the message backed by scientific research so that more and more people can realize that Epicurean simplicity can guarantee not only happiness for its practitioners but also sustainability for the globe.

Being a friend of wisdom – a practicing philosopher and active supporter of global sustainability – might just become presentable and even acceptable so that the seekers of stress-FREEDOM for themselves and for our planet can come out and come together!

As a starter, we might paint our hair green and organize a festival every year!