Hello all, I just wanted to keep you updated on the recent seizure diagnosis, i hope Cassius will allow this post, as i have really used and wanna express how Epicureanism has helped me, so I am taking an EEG experiment (sucks by the way), and they detected signs of what's called absence seizures and generalized epilepsy which can transition into a traditional seizure. Might be a genetic thing from my grandma.
I wanna be clear these procedures absolutely suck, I can't get up and walk around without assistance, can't bathe without having the door propped open, can't even use the bathroom without someone in the next room. Before that I was stuck to an IV machine I had to drag around, which made me pee constantly. I also have had similar incidents a few months ago and lost my cat around my birthday, so it's been a shit few months.
As Epicurus might say "these months are lacking nothing in their natural severity" but in all these things I am being kept going by six simple things.
1. Knowledge that even in these times I have a height of pleasure in not being in physical pain or mental turmoil. The truth of this is made clear by the fact that I can still converse with all of you in a positive outlook.
2. Gratitude for all the joy I've had in this life, which no pain, alleged angry gods, or death could take away. Even recently I went to Disney, saw the 80s transformers movie with my brother, and recently watched Lanterns with my Dad, and I still have my family and all of you, not to mention all the good i've had throughout my life. Right now still Journaling about all the good I've had and the wisdom of Epicurus I've read.
3. The Epicurean Canon keeping me from empty fears. I confess to feeling like God was angry at me, but i simply had to remind myself of the truth of PD1 and my own knowledge of the errors in the bible and how this feeling of God striking people down for unbelief conflicts with our basic grasp (preconception) of divinity of the Abrahamic Gods being there for you, wanting a relationship with you (I even directly asked God for an answer to check, shockingly no answer) and God being love, along with all the other errors of the basic grasp of God's nature often claimed, the truth of basic grasp (preconceptions) as a criterion of truth is now clear to me.
4. This pain is not exclusive to me, or to the irreligious, I know a deeply religious cashier I work with who lost a pet on her birthday, and a daughter, my grandma, also deeply religious had a seizure incident herself in her 20s, along with many other tragedies the religious experience, rather it's just bad luck, which rarely affects the wise with reason being the guiding force in our life.
5. Knowledge that this pain will not last forever, as PD4 and Vatican Saying 4 says, any extreme pain is brief, less extreme only last a few days, and even if I get a longstanding awful disease, will have more pleasure than pain, especially with modern medicine.
6. My family and friends being there for me, nothing of wisdom proving me with more blessedness than fellowship, with the truth of PD27 and especially 28 really being shown to me now. The security and joy they give to me being my surest feature of happiness.