Can you seek happiness and be full of joy when there is a war in Europe? Wes Cecil podcast.

I haven't had time to read the article but in response to the topic question, it's according to Epicurus surely "yes you can seek happiness" but perhaps "can you be full of joy" is more difficult. Being 100% "full of joy" might be analytically only something that an Epicurean god can theoretically achieve in the intermundia, because we always have aches and pains that technically prevent us from being "full."

But Epicurus' last statement about the pleasure he was able to achieve even during the process of dying from a painful disease would be an example that as long as we are alive we can always seek and hope to achieve some amount of pleasure, even if it is only pleasant memories.

So it would be my view that the topic question:

Can you seek happiness and be full of joy when there is XXXX?

Would almost always be answered "yes" from an Epicurean perspective. The only exception I can think of would be those situations where you decide that death is preferable to living on, and even in those situations you are still using a pleasure/pain analysis to guide your decision.

I think that's the real "wrong answer" implied by the question -- it's implying that there is some standard of conduct (implicitly religious or humanistic or in some way absolute) to which you must conform that overrides the pleasure/pain calculation under XXXX circumstances.

This can be analyzed per the ethics of choices and avoidances based on pleasure and pain. In some cases we choose pain, with the intention of greater pleasure to follow. Exercise is a common example. What is notable is that the painful experience is instrumental to achieving pleasure.

While it's natural to feel pain when others are suffering, ceasing to seek pleasure will only diminish one's own efficacy. So I would say that it's actually necessary to continue to seek pleasure. That's the basis of our ethics: if we throw that out, we have nothing to guide us.

If we're in a position to help others who are suffering, then we can choose certain pains with the expectation achieving the pleasures of successfully helping them. If we're not in a position to help them, seeking out pain is basically pointless.

I found this podcast to be very good. He says: that if you are feeling pain of some kind then it will be difficult to feel joy (defined as your "native vitality") -- and this why Epicurus recommended the removal of pain. Very good points given with regard to Epicureanism. Also he said something along the lines: if you enjoy drinking, then drink as much as you want, but you really don't want to give yourself a hang-over. And other interesting points about why our culture looks down on the feeling of joy, while exulting hard work and stress in life.

Seeing this photo gives me an idea that we could sell hoodies and t-shirts which say "EpicureanFriends.com" on the back side, and maybe it could have this logo I just made on the front --

-- and could also make with blue lettering instead of pink.

I've always thought a clip of just Epicurus's eyes from one of the famous portraits or busts sandwiched between

SFO

(eyes)

TSE

would make an interesting Tshirt design with small print of Sic fac omnia tamquam spectet Epicurus on top and Do all things as if Epicurus were watching one the bottom

Then EpicurueanFriends.com on the back?

Quote from Marco

Can you seek happiness and be full of joy when there is a war in Europe?

I have still been pondering this question. Also, because it applies to anything in life, as Cassius wrote: "Can you seek happiness and be full of joy when there is XXXX?"

Being that I live in the US, it feels like the war in Europe is very far away, and I do not personally know anyone affected by it. There have been many wars all through history, and also civil wars and coups in some places in third-world countries (which get much less attention).

Early on, my initial first reaction about what was happening in Ukraine was that I had to readjust my idea (my mental concept) of "world stability" - so observing this happen, the human mind has a way of evaluating the safety of the present moment and the anticipated future. If we feel safe then we can much more easily seek happiness. If we can trust that the world will still be safe then we can relax again.

For people who are directly affected by or living in areas of unrest, it would make more sense to be somber and pay attention, to what is happening, to stay alive. So in some sense happiness and joy are a product of peace. It would not be safe to spend too much time "seeking happiness" in an unsafe environment.

So now why are there those who are living in peace and safety unhappy?

Maybe they worry about war in an abstract sense, or they feel that any suffering in the world should not happen (the above podcast briefly brings up this idea).

There are also other things in life to worry about: one's own financial stabilty, job stability, or family stability. I think that is why it is important to work through one's personal issues with regard to worries in life. For without a sense of having one's basic needs met, it will be difficult to seek happiness.

The idea of "seeking happiness" also is something to investigate. In the podcast Wes Cecil says that we have a kind of "innate joy" or "native joy" that we can tape into. He gives the example of this joy with the image of two dogs playing and chasing each other - they are completely happy in their play. Also it is just paying attention to the good things in life, and the sweet things in life. So "seeking happiness" / "seeking joy" is easy to do -- provided that one's life is stable.

I agree with what Kalosyni wrote.

Also:

Quote from Kalosyni

So in some sense happiness and joy are a product of peace. It would not be safe to spend too much time "seeking happiness" in an unsafe environment.

And in other cases happiness and joy can be the product of war, if under the circumstances war is necessary to obtain or preserve the peace.

My point to emphasize would be that in the end there is nothing - not even "peace" which is desirable in and of itself other than pleasure, and everything else has to be considered a contextual tool that may or may not be appropriate to choose at a particular moment.

"Ultimately" the goal is pleasure, but at any particular moment our context may demand that we choose actions that are for the moment painful.

Quote from Kalosyni

It would not be safe to spend too much time "seeking happiness" in an unsafe environment.

Have we ever pinned down concrete definitions of happiness, joy and pleasure? I ask this because my reaction to this specific quote is that it’s even more necessary to seek pleasure and avoid pain in an unsafe environment. It's just that the desires involved would focus intently on the natural and necessary: safety, shelter, food, etc.

Quote from Kalosyni

So now why are there those who are living in peace and safety unhappy?

This, too, comes down to desires: have these people seen to their financial, job and family stability? Have they embraced an effective personal philosophy? Are they pursuing unnatural and/or unnecessary desires?

Quote from Godfrey

I ask this because my reaction to this specific quote is that it’s even more necessary to seek pleasure and avoid pain in an unsafe environment.

Yes I think you've pointed out the issue in Kalosyni's original wording.

From the highest-level point of view, our orientation is that we are ALWAYS seek to obtain pleasure and avoid pain.

The issue is that from the moment-to-moment point of view we can and often do choose pain so as to obtain a greater pleasure, or to avoid a worse pain.

This is the continuing problem of labels like "hedonism" and accepting the negative stereotype that the Epicurean is going to be a slacker and pursue momentary or lesser pleasures rather than to undergo the pain and effort that are often required to obtain more important goals. Epicurus makes very clear that that is not true, but calling him a "hedonist" or a "pleasure-seeker" obscures the big picture given the corruption of the language.

Call it a definitional issue or philosophical issue or just call it a word game it you must, but this has got to be one of our key challenges. How do we make this so clear that the terminology becomes second nature?

There is NEVER any goal that is a goal in itself other than pleasure, and there is no contradiction in at the same time saying that we sometimes choose pain in order to achieve pleasure.

This confusion is at the root of so much confusion.

As weve just seen in going through AFDIA, people get attracted to "pleasure" but they often never shake the premise that they came in with - they think there is something higher than pleasure which has to steer the ship toward some other goal to save us from ourselves and from overindulgence.

The philosophical boil has to be popped:. We sometimes choose pain in our daily activities due to circumstances, but our goal in making every choice and avoidance decision is always pleasure.

Maybe it helps to reduce pleasure and pain to "feeling" and simply say that it is feeling that makes life worthwhile. Yes we sometimes make choices that cause temporary annoyances to our feelings, but we can't ever lose sight that it is for the sake of our best "feeling" that we do everything.

What we don't feel is, like death, nothing to us.

Quote from Cassius

The philosophical boil has to be popped:

Well, there's a mental image! But I see where you're coming from.

Yes a very poor mental image :-). We need one better for lancing the boil, and a better term than "hedonist". At the very least a modifier for it, but since hedone isn't even an original English world we need to do better.

This far we are at "Epicurean" but that doesn't advance the goal toward being self-explanatory.

Quote from Cassius

And in other cases happiness and joy can be the product of war, if under the circumstances war is necessary to obtain or preserve the peace.

Something about this statement doesn't sit with me well. But maybe it is right up there with: humans kill animals for food and eating them gives us life. The level of abstraction has missing pieces. It may take me several more days to ponder this.

Quote from Godfrey

Have we ever pinned down concrete definitions of happiness, joy and pleasure?

I think it would be a good idea to have definitions.

For now I see that this thread is causing me to think about the meaning of the word "pleasure" and how I understand it.

The "pleasure of relief" in my mind is not pleasure - it is just relief.

Pleasure is for bodily sensations.

Enjoyment is for mental sensations.

My mind is too tired tonight, and I want to come back to this tomorrow, because this thread brings up issues that I think are of primary importance.

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote from Cassius

And in other cases happiness and joy can be the product of war, if under the circumstances war is necessary to obtain or preserve the peace.

Something about this statement doesn't sit with me well. But maybe it is right up there with: humans kill animals for food and eating them gives us life. The level of abstraction has missing pieces. It may take me several more days to ponder this.

It strikes me (literally at first blush) that that statement has an echo of "we can only experience pleasure if we go through pain."

Happiness and joy are not the product of war. I'll give you that undergoing the pain of conflict may be necessary to obtain or preserve peace, but I wouldn't phrase it as happiness and joy are the "product of war." It may be necessary to endure the pain of war, but war does not "produce" happiness. The end of war may allow the environment in which happiness may be found, but I'd be careful about using produced or product. That implies causation.

I don't know if I'd be able to do it, but, theoretically, pleasure can be found in small things during a war with the right perspective... Even if it is as small as "I'm still alive to live tomorrow. I can still feel." Pleasure is emphatically not always the big joyful feeling. It can be as small as taking pleasure in breathing, feeling the breathe in and out.

"Epicurean ethics are defined by prudent choices and avoidances, which are guided by the feelings of pleasure and pain." That's an unwieldy first stab at popping the boil with a very blunt instrument.

Plus there is great pleasure in defeating your enemy - not something we would immediately look kindly on in polite company, but there nevertheless.

I think we once again have to separate pleasure as an ultimate goal, which we wouldn't generally pursue through a life of war, with the pleasures that can come through most any activity that is not always and every moment painful. And as much as we might want to call it that, many people do get great pleasure in war - at least when they are winning - just like boxers and others who fight for a living (all competitive sports?) Find it very exhilarating - again at least in some moments.

War also reduces pleasure and pain to the more primitive animal or newborn levels of basic survival. They're still guides, but the pleasures are not what we might normally think of when we think of pleasure.