On Friendship and Exertion of Effort

I’ve found that approaching things with a mindset of giving can make a big difference. Recently my wife and I began hosting gatherings for friends, often by the pool. We started encouraging our friends to bring others along, and even made simple invitations with directions to make it easier. Since then, the circle of people we see has grown a lot.

It does take effort, and my wife once raised the concern that some of the extended group might be “fair-weather friends.” But I told her that the more friends we make, the more likely the weather stays fair.

The worst pain so far is that one time I spilled a tray of food after being offered help and refusing the help. I shrugged my mistake off at the time with a smile, but it still haunts me a little. I play the host and serve drinks (until I forget to be attentive): and it is in this context I do bring up Epicurus' philosophy of friendship and pleasure.

I do not worry about like mindedness because I'm focusing on what is common to all of us there: to have a good time.

Also, I cannot keep track of who I have said what to, so I presume I have said everything to everyone. It keeps them on their toes (rather than bored as I am perhaps telling them something twice).

Quote from Bryan

Also, I cannot keep track of who I have said what to, so I presume I have said everything to everyone. It keeps them on their toes (rather than bored as I am perhaps telling them something twice).

I hear you, man. Sorry (not sorry) to say, it gets worse as we age. Generally now I ask "Did I tell you about?" (not sorry because I'm still around)

I have only few friends, who I would name so official, but many who there are aspects of friendship like collegues or in the wider familiy. I was/be more introverted than extro.

I try to be more open and tolerant with other people or new people I met in the sense of philia: friendly, compassionate understanding kind of love to others.

But I must be cautious to not be a people pleaser and currently I need much time for family and job, my old long time friends who I met every week in the last decades, I now see 2-3 times in year ( moves to another city, job/family).

This makes me a bit sad, but there is no other way and not more time resources for many new relations. I accept that, maybe time will change in future with older kids.

I've got about a half dozen really good friends whom I have, or am courting to be friends, at the Epicurean level of mutual defense and partners in philosophy and that we more or less connect beautifully. Most of them are friends with each other, and talk and plan of deeper communalism, so I suppose this is fairly tribe-like. I also have just as many acquaintances whom I keep a bit more distance from but consider "friends" in the colloquial, non-Epicurean sense; as well as some people whom I don't really consider friends but are in the extended community that I will rise to the challenge of helping or defending them based on a request. There is also the rare type of friend whom are not quite Epicurean friends, but are still partners in developing the Soul.

I've tried making friends outside of this group, but I've found Epicurus to be right again that without something real, tangible and in their interest that both people are seeking from the other, like cheap childcare or accomplices in board game nights in my case; its really hard to make and keep friends. If you have no deeply social hobbies or require nothing for leisure or that is essential from other people, then I would wonder how friendships get made.

Of course there's the saying: To have a friend you must be a friend.

I look back on my life and now, in my late 70s and I can see numerous stages where I had varying levels of "friendship": School boy, college student, young married, married with children, professional career, grand father, partially retired and late in life second effort as a writer, fully retired from the cares of working for a living and having time to pursue new fields from the comfort of my couch. Each period had different challenges to happiness and pursuing friendships.

I'd like to discuss this further, but I need to catch some lunch before the Sunday EpicrueanFriends zoom.

Quote from Kalosyni

"How much pain to endure for the sake of friendship" (and after moving to a new city (new area) and having to start over with making friends, and the insistence on finding "like-minded" friends, quite a task for my own situation).

Epíkouros and Philódēmos provide us with solid historical instances of this situation. Epíkouros became (as I understand) unwelcome in Mytilene, as Philódemos became unwelcome in Sicily. Open as they were, sometimes, it's just not he right place and the right time. I've been reflecting on their example: each time, they found somewhere better, and that next place became their home.

I grew up in the Rust Belt, and moved to the Dixie Confederacy my freshman year of high school. It sucked. It was like night and day: the unexpected religiosity of teenagers, the strange hyper-obedience toward authority figures, the complete lack of Jewish kids, my friends' parents scolding me when I addressed them by their familiar name ... I was raised as a Christmas-and-Easter Methodist, and became an atheist after I realized that even the Southern Catholics are evangelical.

My first real girlfriend was devoutly Catholic, broke up with me Saturday Mass when she realized I wasn't down with the genuflections and ... one month later, I get institutionalized for mental health issues. It's still crazy to me that the only person who didn't believe in ghosts was crazy.

That was also the year I found Philosophy. It was no coincidence.

I learned that I cannot share my heart with a person who genuinely believes that I am fundamentally, emotionally empty, or spiritually sick in some way. Likewise ... to be fair ... why would someone who believes in ghosts share their life with someone who thinks that people who believe in ghosts are delusional. It goes both ways, I guess. That's just cohabitation.

Quote from Kalosyni

How many of you find that your only friend is your spouse...or that the friends you have are lacking in depth (or lacking in "like-minded-ness")......or the unlimited (unparalleled) enjoyment of staying at home seems better than the effort of seeking new friends...?

I dated this other girl in high school that I really liked, until the words "Bush rally" left her mouth, and my interest vanished like a fart in the wind. I've (totally pretentiously and judgmental, to be frank) cut people out for thinking they were stupid for personal beliefs. (Given what I wrote in paragraph three, I'm sure you can understand how I ended up with that attitude). So, when I met my wife, who rejected religious practice, supernatural belief, mysticism, and spirituality in general, I found the only person I've really ever come across who's as comfortably bleak as I am.

My best friends in life aren't Epicureans, but are well-read. I share a certain fascination with psychedelic experiences with them; one's an existentialist, another wouldn't put a word on it, but lives amongst ancient ideas; all of them think Christianity is bullshit and The Man is bogus.

That's ultimately why I'm here. I read the Swerve about 13 years ago while wondering how I got stuck with bozo roommates, thinking, "No shit? I can talk about Plato, Hegel, Kant, Sartre for hours ... why don't I know about this guy?" I found the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook forum about 11 years ago, and developed online contacts from there, and began dedicated study. It is refreshing to be able to speak my mind about all of the Christian nonsense I mentioned above knowing full well that no one here is going to feel threatened, or get defensive, because no one here has sympathy for it.

The Kathegemones reinforce to me that your social base needs to be compatible with your principles and your means of seeking mental health. That's what I've found. You can't share your life with someone who doesn't respect your beliefs. We can have acquaintances, and colleagues, and neighbors who agree to disagree, but in your deepest circles, for me, you've gotta be on the same page. Otherwise, every conversation over cohabitation and parenting becomes a Congressional debate, and teams develop like an ideological proxy war for opposing sides.

Philódēmos was an ingenius person, and incredibly friendly, and well-received. But that wasn't enough for the Sicilians he met. They wouldn't accept his philosophy, and, when things got tough, they threw him, the outsider, under the bus, and blamed their misfortune on his Otherness. (I wonder if something similar may have happened with Epíkouros in Mytilene?) He had better things to do, and better people to meet, and within a few years, he was hanging with Caesar's crew. Because he pressed on, generations of friends learned the true philosophy. It was equally important that they never gave up when ... what'd Paul Simon say ... "when friends just can't be found."

Quote from Kalosyni

or.....you have found your "tribe"?

I think we're constantly building and re-building each of our own tribes. Epíkouros branded an official tribe to which we are all welcome, so, in a formal sense, I consider that my tribe. It certainly makes ice-breakers easier, and allows us to skip a few steps in the department of "Is it safe to be transparent around this person? (i.e. will they think I'm a heretic?)".

Quote from DaveT

I look back on my life and now, in my late 70s and I can see numerous stages where I had varying levels of "friendship":

DaveT Also in my late 70s, I agree that our friends are often dependent on life stage, job, location, current interests, etc. As someone raised in a military family, we moved every few years, then I chose a career in tech and lived in 10 states as an adult.

So, while I’m adept at connecting with new groups, I appreciate those people who have life-long friends from their youth or school years that they have been able to maintain deep contact with for 40+ years.

Quote from Eikadistes

The Kathegemones reinforce to me that your social base needs to be compatible with your principles and your means of seeking mental health. That's what I've found. You can't share your life with someone who doesn't respect your beliefs. We can have acquaintances, and colleagues, and neighbors who agree to disagree, but in your deepest circles, for me, you've gotta be on the same page.

Eikadistes

Thanks for your frank speech! I too share some common experiences with the religious influence, living in “Dixie” several times in my youth & adulthood.

After a few years of reading from this forum, I resonate so much with the true Epicurean Kepos experience of learning from the writings, as well as the lived experiences of our fellow practitioners. Thanks for your sharing.

In order to maintain an Epicure practice I too find that it is best with a home base where your whole person and core beliefs are accepted.

I think friendship is really underrated in our modern, individualistic society. There was a time in my life when, due to mental health complications, I isolated myself. I stopped talking to most of my old friends, and it was a really dark moment for me. At the time, I didn't realise how much that was making my situation worse. It was only after I started rekindling old friendships and making new ones that things started to get better.

Humans are social animals; there's no way around it. Some people may be more inclined to larger groups, others may be inclined to smaller ones, but there's a reason why one of the most damaging punishments for someone is solitary confinement.

Epicurus, as usual, was right. Protect your friends, people!