"𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐰𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐬 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰". - 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 𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 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 𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 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 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 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 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 to choose whatever brings to us pleasure. And when we say we are free, we are also 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀.
What does mean 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀 ? It means also self-sufficient, and as Epicurus says, the great fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom. A𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀 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 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 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 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥. 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.
𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘄!
