Welcome DevinH !
DevinH tells us:
I've registered and confirmed my email.
My username is: DevinH
I have read and agree to the Community Standards, Rules, and Terms of Use, including the "Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean" statement and the posting policy. I understand the forum is committed to classical Epicurean positions, and I'll participate on that basis.
My background and interest: I'm a scientist in Massachusetts with a PhD in molecular and cell biology. I'm married and have two children, and I deeply love being a partner and father. I work in biotech process development and am finishing an MIT Sloan EMBA. My footer may read as a lot of ambition. I've left it intact anyway, since I'm joining for frank criticism and it seems wrong to start by hiding things that I might need to examine.
I searched for decades for a philosophical and emotional home. I used to call myself a humanist, but I could never find a core for why it was right. Either it rested on absolute morality, which seemed plainly wrong, or it rested on nothing, and it felt hollow. When I came across Epicureanism five years ago, it felt less like a discovery than a home I had always lived in. It just felt right from the start, and the edges I first resisted mostly turned out, after study and reflection, to be right as well. Grounding the good in pleasure, something I actually feel that has a fully physical basis gave me the foundation I'd been searching for. The physics, and the almost insane degree of accuracy, fit how I already saw the world as a biologist. I now use it as a practical framework for how I work, how I treat the people close to me, and how I weigh my choices. I fail more often than I would like to admit, but I hope the community you have built is a place to explore and have peers challenge one's approach to the philosophy. I also have a strong interest in the Herculaneum papyri and follow the Vesuvius Challenge. Amazing that we get new thought from a richer epicurean past every year!!
Reading so far: Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, which is my foundation for the physics and the way to life that flows from it, and the Principal Doctrines, which I'm using as the spine of my study notes. I haven't yet worked through the letters or Philodemus. Next up is DeWitt's Epicurus and His Philosophy, which I have but haven't started, then the Torquatus section of Cicero's On Ends, as your reading page recommends, and Philodemus' On Death. I'm also working my way through the podcast, lovingly. It's been wonderful and a part of my commute for years.
Why I'm requesting an account: I've been studying and practicing mostly alone, though I talk about it with people a lot. I've come to see that as the biggest gap. In working on my own I've developed some readings that I suspect drift from the classical positions, most notably around PD 19 and 20 and whether more time at the fullness of pleasure adds anything. I'd like to test those against people who know the texts far better than I do, and be corrected where I'm wrong.
I understand and agree that pleasure is the highest good, the beginning and end of the happy life. I can't imagine a higher one. As a biologist, I see us as social primates whom nature built to feel pleasure in friendship and community, so for me, living for pleasure and living among friends turn out to be the same project.
Thanks for running the forum and the podcast. Honestly, after years of listening, I'm a bit starstruck to finally be writing to you.
Best,
Devin
Thank you for registering at EpicureanFriends.com, and for writing to us about your background and interest in Epicurus. We look forward to hearing more from you!
As a reminder, all posts are subject to our Community Standards, Rules, and Terms of Use.
Welcome to EpicureanFriends!