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.)

Jennifer Baker published an enlightening article on real Epicureanism in the online blog of “Psychology Today”:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-love-wisdom/201105/the-real-epicures/comments

which I commented as follows:

The real Epicureans walked their talk – for 800 years. No other philosophical school has kept its tenets unchanged for such an impressively long span of time. The ancient Epicureans had their own education system and sustainable communities. As do today’s body-builders, they built their chosen attitudes through daily exercise. Many of their ‘spiritual exercises’ were shared by the other character builder guild, the Stoics. Although the systematic communal and individual practice was interrupted when the Roman emperor Justinian closed the four still-existing philosophy schools in Athens, many of their tenets and attitudes were later studied and cultivated by philosophers, statesmen and psychologists. Their habit-forming practices of self-scrutiny are at the very basis of ‘modern’ behavior therapies . Martha Nussbaum’s “The Therapy of Desire” is an excellent illustration of the ancient desire therapies.
Alain de Botton gives a visually palatable introduction to Epicurus’s original philosophy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20LTTRQcZ8c

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.

The friendliness of the people at Dean’s in Stoughton Hospital and the lunch cooked in their own kitchen definitely go to the positive side of the pain/pleasure ratio.

I was sedated with Versed and slept nicely as the surgeon did a wide excision over the same spot they had biopsied a few weeks ago. He also removed a lipoma from my back and 3 lymph nodes from my groin and sent the tissues to the pathologists who will give us the results in few days.

I have got painkillers so I had an additional nap in the afternoon and a good night sleep till 5.30 in the morning when I got up and attended to the running projects.

I know that some?/many? people find the time of waiting for the “verdict” of the pathologists stressful, probably due to the emotional load of their hopes and fears.

For Epicureans there is no reason to be stressed about the results of histological analysis since they are aware of the fact that they will die one day anyway and it does not really matter what kills them, or as Metrodorus put it:

“It is possible to provide security against other things, but as far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls.”

Epicureans try to live their lives stressFREE and to the full as long as they are alive instead of wasting precious time on pointless speculations about its possible length, true to the motto: “vivamus dum vivimus” (‘let’s live as long as we are alive’).

I will live my days the same way whether the pathologists prognosticate a survival chance of 90% or 60% or 30% for the next five years, depending on  the number and position of Merkel Cell Carcinoma cells in my body: enjoying my time chatting with my wife, children, friends and relatives, managing the projects of the company I work for (Allegro Translations in Madison, Wisconsin), taking walks in the snow, reading books ( at the time on the unique community experience of the inhabitants of the most remote island in the world, Tristan da Cunha), cooking, enjoying the meals cooked by my wife and daughter, and especially enjoying music, the most fascinating phenomenon for me.

I agree with his view on religions but I am am not so sure whether Stoicism is not closer to Christianity than to Epicureanism. You may decide for yourself if you are willing to take five minutes to read 2 pages of relevant texts I quote from Bertrand Russell’s ‘History of Western Philosophy’:

The course of nature, in Stoicism as in eighteenth-century theology, was ordained by a Lawgiver who was also a beneficent Providence. Down to the smallest detail, the whole was designed to secure certain ends by natural means. These ends, except in so far as they concern gods and daemons, are to be found in the life of man. Everything has a purpose connected with human beings. Some animals are good to eat, some afford tests of courage; even bed bugs are useful, since they help us to wake in the morning and not lie in bed too long. The supreme Power is called sometimes God, sometimes Zeus. Seneca distinguished this Zeus from the object of popular belief, who was also real, but subordinate. God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature. The wicked, though perforce they obey God’s law, do so involuntarily; in the simile of Cleanthes, they are like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes.

In the life of an individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only upon himself. He may become poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Other men have power only over externals; virtue, which alone is truly good, rests entirely with the individual. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires. It is only through false judgements that such desires prevail; the sage whose judgements are true is master of his fate in all that he values, since no outside force can deprive him of virtue.

There are obvious logical difficulties about this doctrine. If virtue is really the sole good, a beneficent Providence must be solely concerned to cause virtue, yet the laws of Nature have produced abundance of sinners. If virtue is the sole good, there can be no reason against cruelty and injustice, since, as the Stoics are never tired of pointing out, cruelty and injustice afford the sufferer the best opportunities for the exercise of virtue. If the world is completely deterministic, natural laws will decide whether I shall be virtuous or not. If I am wicked, Nature compels me to be wicked, and the freedom which virtue is supposed to give is not possible for me.

To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it. We admire a medical man who risks his life in an epidemic of plague, because we think illness is an evil, and we hope to diminish its frequency. But if illness is no evil, the medical man might as well stay comfortably at home. To the Stoic, his virtue is an end in itself, not something that does good. And when we take a longer view, what is the ultimate outcome? A destruction of the present world by fire, and then a repetition of the whole process. Could anything be more devastatingly futile? There may be progress here and there, for a time, but in the long run there is only recurrence. When we see something unbearably painful, we hope that in time such things will cease to happen; but the Stoic assures us that what is happening now will happen over and over again. Providence, which sees the whole, must, one would think, ultimately grow weary through despair.

Cleanthes of Assos, the immediate successor of Zeno, is chiefly notable for two things. First: as we have already seen, he held that Aristarchus of Samos should be prosecuted for impiety because he made the sun, instead of the earth, the centre of the universe. The second thing is his Hymn to Zeus, much of which might have been written by Pope, or any educated Christian in the century after Newton. Even more Christian is the short prayer of Cleanthes: Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, O Destiny, Lead thou me on. To whatsoever task thou sendest me, Lead thou me on. I follow fearless, or, if in mistrust I lag and will not, follow still I must.

Panaetius had said, as most Stoics did, that the soul perishes with the body. Posidonius, on the contrary, says that it continues to live in the air, where, in most cases, it remains unchanged until the next world-conflagration. There is no hell, but the wicked, after death, are not so fortunate as the good, for sin makes the vapours of the soul muddy, and prevents it from rising as far as the good soul rises. The very wicked stay near the earth and are reincarnated; the truly virtuous rise to the stellar sphere and spend their time watching the stars go round. They can help other souls; this explains (he thinks) the truth of astrology. Bevan suggests that, by this revival of Orphic notions and incorporation of Neo-Pythagorean beliefs, Posidonius may have paved the way for Gnosticism. He adds, very truly, that what was fatal to such philosophies as his was not Christianity but the Copernican theory.

Epictetus: Who then is a Stoic? Show me a man moulded to the pattern of the judgments that he utters, in the same way as we call a statue Phidian that is moulded according to the art of Phidias. Show me one who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him me. By the gods I would fain see a Stoic. Nay you cannot show me a finished Stoic; then show me one in the moulding, one who has set his feet on the path. Do me this kindness, do not grudge an old man like me a sight I never saw till now. What! You think you are going to show me the Zeus of Phidias or his Athena, that work of ivory and gold? It is a soul I want; let one of you show me the soul of a man who wishes to be at one with God, and to blame God or man no longer, to fail in nothing, to feel no misfortune, to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy—one who (why wrap up my meaning?) desires to change his manhood for godhead, and who in this poor body of his has his purpose set upon communion with God. Show him to me. Nay, you cannot. Epictetus is never weary of showing how we should deal with what are considered misfortunes, which he does often by means of homely dialogues.

Like the Christians, he holds that we should love our enemies. In general, in common with other Stoics, he despises pleasure, but there is a kind of happiness that is not to be despised. “Athens is beautiful. Yes, but happiness is far more beautiful—freedom from passion and disturbance, the sense that your affairs depend on no one”. Every man is an actor in a play, in which God has assigned the parts; it is our duty to perform our part worthily, whatever it may be.

Marcus Aurelius is doubtful about immortality, but says, as a Christian might: “Since it is possible that thou mayst depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.” Life in harmony with the universe is what is good; and harmony with the universe is the same thing as obedience to the will of God. “Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. The poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of Zeus?”

One sees that Saint Augustine’s City of God was in part taken over from the pagan Emperor. Marcus Aurelius is persuaded that God gives every man a special daemon as his guide—a belief which reappears in the Christian guardian angel. He finds comfort in the thought of the universe as a closely-knit whole; it is, he says, one living being, having one substance and one soul. One of his maxims is: “Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe.” “Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of thy being.”

Female chacma baboons that maintain close, lasting friendships live considerably longer than their peers who switch companions more frequently, a new study finds in ScienceNews

• • pain
  • a lack of control over environmental circumstances, such as food, housing, health, freedom
  • social issues such as social defeat, relationship conflict, deception, break-ups
  • major events such as birth, death, marriage, and divorce
  • life experiences such as poverty, unemployment, exams, deadlines

Why are these very common issues and experiences perceived by many as threats? If they are so common, why are we not appropriately prepared for them? Is our failure to cope with the most common issues not a result of the malfunction of those whose responsibility it is to prepare us for life? Have our parents, teachers, educators and counselors all failed us?

Epicurus, the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy and happiness-boosting life conduct, suffered all his life from a bladder pain that finally killed him. This fact, however, did not interfere with his pursuit of happiness, even though they had no pain relief medicines in 271 BCE.

So what was Epicurus’s secret?  His “four-part cure,” in Greek “tetrapharmakos,” can give us a hint:

Don’t fear the gods,
Don’t worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure

But his anti-stress medicine could not be swallowed at once with a glass of water. His followers had to chew and digest it over many years in their communal educative life-schools. The effort must have been worthwhile since the Epicurean circles of friends flourished over 800 years from 300 BCE till 500 CE.

So how was Epicurus’s stress-prevention program practiced?

The Epicureans did not give up their possessions as the Pythagoreans did, since that would have prevented them from generously sharing their resources with each other. They did not rebel against the state and its institutions, as the Cynics did, since they relied on the state to protect them in exchange for performing their duties as citizens. (Epicurus himself went to Athens for his two-year term of military service at the age of 18.) They did not plot against rulers or attempt revolutions, as the Platonists did, since they believed that the exercise of political power beyond the bounds of their own self-administrative communes endangered their peace of mind, necessary for a good life in freedom and happiness. For the same reason they did not participate in state affairs, as the Stoics did. They kept a low profile according to one of their principles: “lathe biosas,” in English,” live unobtrusively” or “unnoticed.”

This is what they did: The happiness-seekers lived together in communities where they could individually and collectively promote each others’ progress on their pathways from pain to pleasure. They studied intensively Epicurus’s therapeutical writings and memorized the most important precepts so they had them ready at hand the moment the specific philosophical-psychological pill was needed. They gave each other feedback on their progress and those who were more advanced helped the others in the way modern life-coaches and trainers do through lectures, discussions, conversations, and practical activities.

How  can an Epicurean lifestyle prevent each of life’s main “stressors”? Through the education and continuous practice of stress-busting, happiness-boosting attitudes towards all the issues related to pain, fear, frustration experienced today as social defeat, relationship conflict, deception, break-ups, births, deaths, divorce, poverty, unemployment, exams, and deadlines.

I will take up these issues individually and describe how Epicureans dealt with them over eight centuries and how we can deal with them today.

I have written an article on this issue entitled: ‘Proven Ancient Prevention against Modern Life’s  “Stressors”’ and submitted it to ezinearticles.com