“From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” now as paperback, too
Finally, I can accommodate the wish of those friends of mine who demanded a paperback book they can lay back with on the sofa and read leisurely, instead of having to sit in front of their computer, or to print out the eBook.
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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Greenblatt on the Epicurean Lucretius and the Epicurean Jefferson
Stephen Greenblatt, the author of “The Swerve” talking about the Epicurean attitude to pleasure, about Lucretius’s poem and about the Epicurean Thomas Jefferson in an interview with Charlie Rose:
the full interview (23 min): http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11977
a 5 minutes cut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOv4KPkUDY
Epicurean Belief System and Conduct of Life
After my lecture on Epicureanism I was asked whether I think that Epicureanism is going to spread again. My answer was two pronged:
In the broad sense there are millions, and maybe billions, of part time unwitting Epicureans spread all over the world.
I call part time unwitting Epicureans all those who don’t know much or anything about Epicurus and his teachings but share, for the most part, the Epicurean belief system and behave most of the time as you’d expect an Epicurean to behave, i.e. they
- think, talk and work honestly
- manage their households rationally
- tend to communal self-sufficiency
- contribute to the sustenance of their smaller or larger communities
- try to make the best out of their lives without harming others
- refuse the use of force and coercion in spreading their ideas
- are tolerant with others’ world views and lifestyles
- do not believe in the force of destiny or supernatural powers
- accept the validity of scientific methods and results
- are reliable and committed friends, partners, parents, coworkers
- are friendly with their friends and polite with everyone else
- respect the written and unwritten laws of the country where they live
- base their interactions on the principles of mutuality and contractuality
In the narrow sense, however, there are no full time practicing Epicureans that I know of, as of 2011. There are no Epicurean schools, no Epicurean education system and no Epicurean communities to teach, practice and cultivate a communal Epicurean conduct of life.
As a member of a long time dormant Italian Epicurean mailing list I was pleasantly surprised these days to see that the members started naming the places where they live and whether they are able and/or willing to host Epicureans so that they can get to know each other personally.
This initiative could even develop one day into something like the Pasporta Servo (Passport Service, the hospitality service for Esperantists) as soon as the Epicureans develop something like a consciously practiced common culture (and choose a common language to interact with Epicureans coming from another linguistic background.)
buy nothing days as exercise for freedom
I have just read an interesting interview Jules Evans did way back in 2002 with Kalle Lasn, the founder of Adbusters, which is a Vancouver-based collective of ‘culture jammers’, and the inventors of Buy Nothing Day:
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.
I am proud of my friends
I don’t believe pride is an emotion anybody should be proud of experiencing if
“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?)
Take-Aways From the Chapter ‘Desires’ (PP26)
Here’s sequel 26 of my Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” (from Chapter 3: DESIRES)
Take-Aways From Desires
- We need to debate with ourselves the pros and cons, short-term and long-term, when faced with a decision whether or not to fulfill a desire.
- Frequently, satisfying a desire has consequences for others and should be carefully considered.
- There is usually a difference between needs and desires. However, sometimes the distinction becomes a little blurry, which should not be a cause for concern.
To read my complete Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” go to http://stressfreedomguide.com/
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