Welcome Matthaios!

Hey Cassius, thank you for the welcome and forgive me for the delay.

I will try to be more active within this group, as I am a continuous learner of Epicurus philosophy. I was occasionally active on Facebook, but recently decided to go without it, forcing myself to get involved in other avenues of media.

My initial interest in Greek culture started off as a child with Greek mythos. My favorite movie growing up was the Odyssey (1997). I would discuss Greek mythos with my best friends dad, who was himself a Greek immigrant. Religiously I was raised Roman Catholic, but not strictly. Around my senior year in HS, I became agnostic. Afterwards I discovered Buddhism while deployed to the Middle East. Buddhist philosophy made a profound impact on my life, to the degree that I left the military and did a complete reversal of lifestyle and career choice. During college I initially discovered Stoicism, which I found interesting. During this time I was very apolitical and took that seriously. Stoicism did not meet my apolitical interests and neither did Buddhism, among other faults. It was while browsing a Facebook Stoic forum that I discovered Epicureanism; where the Stoic adherents were criticizing it. So I looked into it and found that Epicureanism resonated with me and that it was also in-line with my political philosophies.

Aside from having browsed through Epicurus facebook groups, I have read "On The Nature of Things" and am currently reading "The Faith of Epicurus" by Benjamin Farrington (1967). I make it a point to scan used bookstores for any Epicurean gems I can find.