The Epicurean ethic applied to the emotional school of thought.

The Epicurean ethic applied to the emotional school of thought.

Epicurus (341–c. 270 BC) had the belief that the best life was a life of happiness, and the way to achieve this was to pursue pleasure that would cause the least pain. Epicureanism gets confused with hedonism sometimes in that seeks pleasure in life as an intrinsic value in itself. The highest pleasure is tranquility and the freedom from fear. The way to obtain this is through knowledge, friendship, and a temperate life. It started off as an opposing school to Platonism but eventually became the main opponent of Stoicism. Epicurus bought a house with a garden and it became known as the philosophy of "The Garden". Some of greatest differences in ethical approaches between Epicureanism and Stoicism are pleasure versus ridding oneself of desire. Pleasure versus self-preservation. Pleasure as self-preservation being inseparable versus self-preservation leading to valuing of reason, which leads to excellence. Epicureans don't see it necessary to eliminate emotions because only a few are needed in moderation for a good life. Stoics sought to control emotions through self-restraint because they'd hinder reason and excellence.

Today we will be Epicureans due to the fact that my philosophy on morality is one based on emotions. The point of Epicureanism is to reach Atraxia or disambiguation, and the way this is done is by living life through observation of the senses, and not being clouded by thoughts of things non-evident we'd like to inquire about. Its focus is on pleasures in moderation and those pleasures are those of the mind rather than those of the body. It's more important who we eat with rather than what is eaten. It's not about suppressing pleasure as much as artificial pleasures created by culture and politics, so it's very focused on a simple private life away from public traditions like marriage. Epicurus was celibate his whole life, but didn't impose it on those who followed his philosophy. Reciprocity is another important feature because it's beneficial. Epicureanism later influenced utilitarian thought based on pleasure and pain by Jeremy Bentham, which is good when being applied to obeying the law or a market system, but what should be kept in mind is that utilitarianism and market systems are about immediate gratification and punishment, or supply and demand. The problem with this is it doesn't allow for long-term rewards and punishments and only focuses on cognitive dissonance of things built on through our own experiences. If we have a bad experience like touching a hot stove it's a well lesson learned, but someone hurts our feelings this isn't the same as that from nature because nature to an extent can run on scientific laws that repeat like gravity, but people are not all the same, and we may take a bad experience from the past and associate it with the present taking away from a possible long term reward available. Market systems are amoral so they give us what we want, but not always what we need. For example we can get material goods we desire based on supply and demand but we may not be supplied well with health care and education by the market, because only those who can afford it will get it. When the news shows us stories we want to see because they're exciting we might not always see important information we need to see. If we place this on a micro level to the individual we have to keep in mind things that feel good are always what is best for us in the long run.

This is where I create what I call the emotional school of thought. A popular belief in democratic societies is that rationality is good and emotions are bad. The reason emotions are seen as bad is because we tend to only think of them in one context in contrast to rationality, which outburst or anger, so a person who can't keep their calm and be rational must be acting crazy, but if we had no emotion or passion we would be robots with nothing driving us to love or hate enough to drive us to opinion. The same is seen when it comes to emotions as a weakness, but I believe emotions are our greatest strength, and the only reason people become crippled by emotions is because they aren't emotionally intelligent. They're busy trying to rationalize their way through problems instead of following their gut to where it feels good. If we followed our true emotional desires and rationalized around them we'll find true happiness. An example of this is a man I know who is trying to figure out why this woman keeps calling, but won't come to hang out. He's trying to come up with numerous theories as to why, and the one he believes is she wants to control him and make him want her, so the solution is to figure out a way to control her back in order to get her in his life. This over rationalizing will only drive a person crazy. First of all even if he could trick her into his life he'd find she isn't what he really wants, because he had to trick her there. The second problem is that he thinks she cares enough to want to control him. The truth is we live in a world where nobody cares about us. They only care about what we can do for them, and since we're emotional creatures, I see this woman flipping through a Rolodex in her head whenever she wants emotional attention. If nobody is in front of her at the time she scrolls to the first name available and calls. It's not about him for who he is as much as it's about he's available and nobody else is right now. As soon as someone else is around he won't exist again till she's alone.

Civilization has made all of us insecure, because we live in a world where we're amongst strangers, and we all want emotional attention. This is in our nature beneath all rationality. If there were two amoebas swinging their cells around it isn't to find a special amoeba, but to connect with whatever touches it first. Once it connects it finds emotional validation. This is all we really want in life from a world of insecurity. Although I may not completely agree with Epicurus, there are some important lessons to be learned. In a world of insecurity we need to use reciprocity to test people to see if they're worthy of our time. The mistake of my friend is he's trying to control a situation where he has no control, because there is apathy on the other end toward him. It's not till someone can love enough of the things we can do for them that they'll begin to love us for who we are personally. Once we've reached this phase we no longer see selfishness and a desire to get what these people can do for us. We are now a machine that functions as one. Now two is more powerful than one and others who would like to be selfish and see this will either join or flee, because they can't compete. This is how a moral society forms and only the deviants remain as criminals. These morals form around our emotions for stability and happiness. When enough people find this is possible the same way it because the rule opposed to those who won't cooperate with it. People who can't find emotional intelligence will pull their hair out over and issue they can't change in their favor instead of just doing what they know they really want. A step up from this is realizing what we want and trying to trick people into it like call me later till they finally call saying I'm coming to see you, but these people never exist as we'd like them to. A step up from this is to know what we'd like emotionally and put our foot down right there demanding what we want and others can't meet it they should leave. Finally, to reject people who can't meet our emotional needs in a kind way that causes them to still think highly of us on their departure will go into the world wanting to be more like us and create world more like the one we'd like to live in.

The secret to finding what we want in people isn't seeking it out in others as much as to stay on our track where we know things work well. Nature gave us many important attributes, and if we look at early societies and how they functioned perhaps we'll have a formula for what can make us happy. Instead of trying to control a situation where we'd like more and can't get it, we should focus on what we can get, and when we're doing this just like the amoebas we'll find there are some people who happen to connect with us on a regular basis the way we like and makes us emotionally comfortable and stable the way we were before, but on a higher level. The first tenant of Epicureanism is friendship. If anything hurts us the most in life its chasing after love and being hurt. Friendship is far more valuable in the long term. Love is what we want and not always what we need. If we look back at the hunter-gatherer we find tribes, and just like Epicurus lived in a house with his friends the tribe lived together. As social creatures this is an important things crated by civilization that has been taken from us, especially in a place like America where independence and individualism are more important than teamwork. That means the first step is to establish a tribe. Friends are what Aristotle would see as the pleasure friendship. The next step would be to add the utility friendship, or find friends we enjoy the company of and share some basic material things with them like food, shelter, and protection. Sharing these basic needs will make a home where we can be happy together and better take care of ourselves because we take care of each other. This emotionally comfortable and stable home will always give us a place of refuge. Another tenant should be physical contact. Now we go back to the speech about sodomy that will lead to other topics, but lets keep in mind what Plato said about loving people for their virtues. Men more than women have been taught that it's wrong to touch each other, but it doesn't have to be in what we know as a sexual manner. The greatest sources of stimulation are the brain and the skin. Having the ability to hold or be held reinforces morale.

If there were ever a problem with the modern relationship, it's that we've been taught that it should revolv around sex, and love, and that sex is love and love is sex, so a good sexual relationship is a healthy relationship, and one without good sex isn't healthy. If happiness is more about friendship and we look at the hunter gatherer we find that men and women were economically codependent, shared a home, shared children, and we more than just sexual partners. They were part of a greater community of friends that took care of each other. The modern relationship is dyadic, and we're taught to move away from the public life and deep involvement with others causing a far more intense relationship leading to stress. The great feature of the tribe is that we have others we can spend time with and talk to who also share similar lives with us. We seem to keep the same friends for several years without this stress, but not lovers. This is where I'll have to create a term to sum up what it really takes to find a stable and healthy relationship today. I'll call it "Epano Love" with the Ancient Greek word for "more than" placed in front of love. A relationship needs Epano Love, because love and sex in themselves are not enough to keep two people close. Why does a friendship work so well for so long? It's about having shared goals and a shared identity. Finding people who are willing to cooperate in the long term as well as share material resources is a start, but there is something that needs to come before this. Since morality had to form before religion and religion was needed to give us a story to know how to live, so we didn't have to repeat the process of reciprocity in law, we need to find people who share our story of how to live. In religion there is always a sacred and a profane. The sacred is the ritual that binds a community together, and the profane is the everyday life they live around this. A church is a great place to meet people who share a story with us. If we don't have a church perhaps we have a political party where we meet others in activities that we care about. Above all we something I call Self-Bureaucratization. Stability is gained by doing things on a regular basis that make us better people. It's true that nature gave us a function for food, sleep, and sex, and we even crave alcohol or drugs, but these things are the things we want, and don't always need. These things in minimal amounts leaving room for a focus on greater things will give us room to be greater people. All the things from nature in civilization are fleeting, and should only be done with friends. That means we need to self-bureaucratize by finding talents, competence, and skills. A human being is human going nowhere, but a human doing is a human becoming something greater that they were prior. The things of nature only bring temporary happiness with a desire for more of the same thing, but the things of ritual will make us specialists in things we can share. The food we put in our mouths, and the sleep we crave only benefit our bodies, and the sex we enjoy with those we haven't developed empathy for ends the night it begins. To self-bureaucratize is to become good at things like music, art, physical abilities, dancing, career skills, and in today's society we live in a reflection of the past in many ways where women are no longer chained by physical chains, but their souls are chained, because they're still taught o be cute and pretty, and they learn to rely on this till they're middle aged and another young girl takes their place, but a woman who can become competent and skilled has things to share beyond sex and love. She has the tings to share that true friends share and those are hobbies that make us better people. This means those we learn to share our goals and hobbies with will make the best lovers, because we have epano love and only seek to better each other beyond things that can happen in a bedroom. We should seek these epano friendships in everyone we meet, and when we meet people we're attracted to, we should invite them to spend time with our tribe of friends so they can see us in our natural element, and if they don't show up it doesn't seem awkward, because it doesn't seem like a date. It seems like we want friends who can share greater things with our community, and us and perhaps if they want to become part of the community love may come later, and if they leave and we feel hurt our community will reinforce our morale till another comes along. We shouldn't kiss those we aren't sure will be close enough to share our lives first in greater fashions beforehand, and this will avoid drama and pain. The same as hunter-gatherers sent a wife to a tribe for goods, and the wife became part of the new community, we should be focused on bringing other into our communities. This is what we need and not just what we want and it will bring the greatest happiness. Next I will go back into religion and messages