"๐๐ง๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ ๐ฐ๐ก๐ข๐๐ก ๐ฐ๐ ๐๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฌ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ฉ๐ฌ ๐ฎ๐ฌ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ก ๐๐ง๐ฒ ๐ฌ๐จ๐ซ๐ซ๐จ๐ฐ". - Pericles the Athenian
I consider this sentence by Pericles (through the great Historian Thucydides) to be very important. He says that the pleasure which we ๐๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ feel helps us to banish any sorrow. Yes, this is clear and obvious: when many people in a society feel sorrow and melancholy are due to their fear of god, fear of death and are the same issues that lead to loneliness and depression the persons in a society. In this society people are not participating with gladness in common affairs political or religious. They are not creative. They are not grateful. They are not eudeamonic/blissful.
They are fatalists, apathetics and suspicious to each other. And they blindly vote for leaders like themselves, who think that are like the axis of Earth spinning around the Universe. Because if the common affairs (philosophical, political, religious etc.) became boring, we may think and also this : Is there any virus in these peoples' life that provoke to them an illness as a great plague? Is there something that is going against to these peoples' nature?
IF the ๐๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ things and common issues, in any society, bring to people the painful feelings of sorrow, stress, agony, depression and melancholy, this society is doomed to be dissolved, because these feelings lead to suspicion and disastrous actions among same people. This society has no coherence anymore. And as the greek idiom says : "in any disaster, only the carnivorous wolves are feeling happy".
And here we read from Meneoceus : "I (Epicurus) have abolished the Necessity that is introduced by some thinkers as the mistress of all things, for it were better to subscribe to the myths concerning the gods than to be a slave to the Destiny of the physicists, because the former presumes a hope of mercy through worship but the latter assumes Necessity to be inexorable".
And that means for being united with the others in my society I will put all the probabilities on the table for doing the hedonic calculus according to the right study of Nature and my nature, and even to subscribe worshiping with others our common gods. Because for being bliss and happy I will use all the tools that lead myself and my society living our unique life in pleasure. Since we all ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ that there is no other life nowhere else.
But when these tools do not bring us pleasure anymore e.g. worshiping some gods, we are able to change and even the image of those gods because we are ๐ณ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ to choose whatever brings to us pleasure. And when we say we are free, we are also ๐ฎ๐๐๐ผ๐ป๐ผ๐บ๐ผ๐๐.
What does mean ๐ฎ๐๐๐ผ๐ป๐ผ๐บ๐ผ๐๐ ? It means also self-sufficient, and as Epicurus says, the great fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom. A๐๐๐ผ๐ป๐ผ๐บ๐ผ๐๐ also is the epicurean swerve (pareglisi) which means we are responsible and capable to give all the laws by ourselves and for ourselves since, we do not accept that the laws are given by some leaders or by any god when they are proved harmful. We are able to change and the laws, and the leaders and the gods when they do not bring to us any ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฟ๐ฒ in our daily common affairs.
However, what the new greeks are doing now in Epicurus homeland? They insist to vote the same stupid leaders. They insist to follow stupid religious leaders who are spreading the same image of a foreign stupid god.
I want back again all the 30 thousand ancient greek gods that their image was given clearly by Epicurus as natural beings that were living in bliss and pleasure that is according to the natural and not the unnatural. I want back that Democracy of Pericles that is all described of how can be achieved in his epitaph. I want hundreds of epicurean Gardens to be established in the cities of Epicurus' homeland. I want the epicurean philosophy to be taught properly inside the schools and academies. This choice and option is against the new greeks' sorrow and melancholy that became higher after the financial crisis.
No, thrice NO in Greece - and not only in Greece - the crisis ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐ฅ. The crisis is in all the values that have been turned upside down. The means i.e. the virtues became as abstract goals, and the real goal i.e. the pleasure and eudaemonia, and the proclaimer of these feelings Epicurus, is hidden and be slandered for centuries and centuries till our days.
๐ง๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป๐๐๐ฎ๐น๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐น๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ป๐ผ๐!
