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How to Live in Times of Upheaval: The Categories of Desire

  • Godfrey
  • August 5, 2024 at 8:21 PM
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Sunday Weekly Zoom - NEW TOPIC Coming up this Sunday!.  12:30 PM EDT - September 14, 2025 - "Life is desirable, but unlimited time contains no greater pleasure than limited time". To find out how to attend CLICK HERE. To read more on the discussion topic CLICK HERE.

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  • Godfrey
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    • August 8, 2024 at 8:30 PM
    • #21

    Re post #12 graphic: also include PDs 15, 21, 26 and 29, in addition to 30.

  • Don
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    • August 8, 2024 at 8:39 PM
    • #22
    Quote from Godfrey

    Re post #12 graphic: also include PDs 15, 21, 26 and 29, in addition to 30.

    FYI:

    15. Natural wealth is both limited and easy to acquire, but the riches incited by groundless opinion have no end. ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλοῦτος καὶ ὥρισται καὶ εὐπόριστός ἐστιν, ὁ δὲ τῶν κενῶν (kenōn < emptiness, void) δοξῶν εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει.

    ἄπειρον = infinity "no-limit"

    Limited in this PD is ὥρισται which includes the connotation of "limit (one thing according to another)"

    "Easy to acquire" reminds me of the 3rd line of the tetrapharmakos.

    I like the connotation of ὁ τῶν κενῶν δοξῶν εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει. Those based on empty beliefs εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει. ἐκπίπτει has a meaning "to fall out, fall down" but also to be cast ashore or suffer shipwreck, to be driven out or banished, etc. εἰς ἄπειρον "into infinity." So, to me, this has the underlying meaning of having an empty desire for limitless wealth is like being banished to search for satisfaction in your wealth into the infinite void with no end in sight forever.

  • Titus
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    • August 9, 2024 at 1:25 AM
    • #23
    Quote from Godfrey

    At the moment, I haven’t got much further than compiling this list. And of course many of the questions will only apply to a particular type of upheaval, and the answers will be different for everyone and in each situation.

    I would like to emphasize Cassius' famous phrase: "Don't be a Stoic in disguise!" ;)

    The point is not to ask what's in my power and what is beyond my capabilities and to examine everything that comes to my mind according to this procedure. The key is to actually focus on what's important in life, what does have priority and what is established by nature as the foundation of life.

    1. everything that natural, either necessary like to stay hydrated or 2. a tasty soft drink derived from that need what one could call not necessary. 3. Not necessary desires which are not to focus on.

    I like this classification because it gives positive statements what to pursue. I know there is space for interpretation and to some degree in modern consumer society there is plenty of food, drink and clothing available. But perhaps this is exactly the trap: Thinking the easy things don't matter because they seem to be too easy to achieve!

    In your case the message could be: Focus on a healthy diet, focus on your corporeal well-being, focus on your social interactions. Strengthen the foundation. So you don't get distressed by what's going on on the screens. The direct response you receive is that you (hopefully!) have plenty of food, drink and shelter as well as friends available and that is it what is first and what matters foremost.

    This is to experience in our everydays lives. As the natural desires usually give a direct response related to our senses, hopefully this can be a strategy to go skip the abstract fears in one's head.

    (I've just mentioned the very essentials of life, but this doesn't mean to not focus on other pleasurable experiences. This is just a personal preference.)

    Fill yourself up with the fullness of pleasure, so the emptiness of the world cannot enter!

  • Kalosyni
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    • August 9, 2024 at 10:53 AM
    • #24
    Quote from Godfrey

    Re post #12 graphic: also include PDs 15, 21, 26 and 29, in addition to 30.

    Thanks Godfrey... I updated it :)

  • Godfrey
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    • August 9, 2024 at 12:02 PM
    • #25

    Titus it's interesting that you mention the Stoic "what's in my power." As I was thinking about the desires in my first post above, that kept popping into my head. Much to my discomfort! Thanks for reminding me of the benefits of the categories, with which I firmly agree.

    But there comes a point where the fullness of pleasure is elusive, and not due to imaginary fears or social media. And even when our basic needs are safely met and the flowers smell nice and the zip lines are well greased. Life is full of fears and disturbances beyond the gods and the afterlife and I think Epicurus was addressing those as well. Sometimes simple pleasures and having met our needs is sufficient for the fullness of pleasure. Sometimes additional reasoning in the midst of upheaval (of whatever type) is called for.

    PD16 Chance steals only a bit into the life of a wise person: for throughout the complete span of his life the greatest and most important matters have been, are, and will be directed by the power of reason. (St-Andre)

  • Don
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    • August 9, 2024 at 12:34 PM
    • #26
    Quote from Titus

    The point is not to ask what's in my power and what is beyond my capabilities and to examine everything that comes to my mind according to this procedure. The key is to actually focus on what's important in life, what does have priority and what is established by nature as the foundation of life.

    I would agree that for the most part; however, the Stoics have no monopoly on what is usually ascribed to them:

    Quote from Epicurus, letter to Menoikeus

    whom do you consider is better or more powerful than one who holds pious beliefs concerning the gods; one who has absolutely no fears concerning death; one who has rationally determined the τέλος of one's natural state; and the one who grasps that, on the one hand, good things (namely pleasures) are both easily attained and easily secured, and, on the other hand, evil things (or pains) are either short in time or brief in suffering; someone who laughs at Fate which is introduced onto the stage of life by many as the mistress of all things? For that person, even though some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some by our own power, for although necessity is beyond our control, they see that chance is unstable and there is no other master beyond themselves, so that praise and its opposite are inseparably connected to themselves.

  • Kalosyni July 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM

    Moved the thread from forum Practical Exercises In Applied Epicurean Philosophy to forum Epicurean Life Strategies.

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