Spitting Upon the Beautiful...

Yet another turn in the road of life and I find Epicurus and the Sages have already been here and offer a salve.

"I spit upon the beautiful and those who vainly admire it, when it does not produce any pleasure"

As I navigate a very amicable separation and co-parenting arrangement with my ex-partner this oracle has presented itself from my memory as the correct approach. Even a beautiful form like a generally pleasant and peaceful marriage and family lifemust not get in the way of the Pleasant Life if it no longer offers it. In this moment I read it is a way to manage the loss of a pleasant form that became untenable and unpleasant over time. I need not mourn long but even reason towards shunning what was to dodge falling into an unpleasant state again. Beautiful forms, however beautiful and virtuous, must face the measuring stick of the Canon.

Note: Given how damned awkward this subject can be I will simply say I am actually pretty unburdened by dourness and flying high emotionally from this among other emotions and the ex-partner and I are fully committed to Friendship and partnering in raising the children. So no need for any sort of expression of condolences if you, gentle soul, are so inclined. I just wanted to share a new perspective I had on what might be a baffling oracle from Epicurus or original Epicureans.

Thank you Cassius... I suppose at face value this is indeed a failure, but I see it as a rare species of victory. Long ago struck covenants made in the darkness of poor reason, blindness and rejection of the self and other states of poor reasoning are doomed to either pain or dissolution, or both. To let go of them, to let them flow as they may is a liberation; plucking the softness and surrendering the bitter. I see much of my life as having made many, many smaller failures of philosophy, self-forgetting and self-denying in the name of some supposed greater victory of virtue and now I have finally made a course correction even in a much later hour due to finding true philosophy and right practice. Now, I am finding all desires and all sensations are pursuing creative and discerning fullfillment without the weight of maintaining a virtuous form even if we tried to make it as light as feather. I am writing, reciting, teaching and reading poetry - engaging with beauty for the first time since primary school. Clarity and love abound in the soul for we humans. Practical philosophy of aesthetics and pursuit of beautiful action are let loose, and loving and admiring people in novel, consensual and discerning ways are cropping up... rare forms of friendship and intimacy are in bloom and even desires repressed are being driven towards delicacy and new and exotic virtuous forms.

Verily, all Virtue rests and is built on the foundation of Hēdonē.