Don I like how you slipped "reject" in there in place of "avoid." Your choice of rejection is growing on me...
We can also choose or reject specific desires in addition to the actions related to them. Not all desires though!
For example, years ago I stopped drinking sodas. I desired to stop drinking them, chose the actions involved in not drinking them and thereby, over time eliminated the desire to drink them.
(At times like this, it still feels wild how I myself have been blind to this simple truth for so long; how that was even possible despite all the reading and reflection, despite knowing in my gut that “something isn't right”; how completely I was entrenched in what is wrong so obviously.)
You're not alone in feeling that! You've described well what I too have often felt.
No apologies necessary: congratulations for showing up!
Hedonism, philosophically speaking, is “the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.” (Apple Dictionary)
A case can be made that Epicurus was a psychological hedonist. That might negate MP's entire argument, although he seems to be equating that with his evolutionary angle.
Where he is completely missing the boat (at least in the portion up to the pay wall) is by separating pleasure/pain from sensations and anticipations. Epicurus presented these three as a unified group of faculties with which we make decisions, supplemented by reason. By ignoring this fact he's taking the Ciceronian path of argument by omission.
Oops, I thought it was all the same thing 
I've downloaded the paper, although I'm not sure when I'll get to it as I've got more pleasurable endeavors lined up.
Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco and Paul Bloomfeld appear to be the authors, not Pigliucci.
Just spouting off here, but this seems to me to be an example of people with completely different mindsets talking past each other. Committed Stoics seem to be wired to try to live rationally, which to them means to set aside feelings in making choices and avoidances. Whereas committed Epicureans realize that feelings underlie rationality: ignoring them is like swimming upstream with only one arm and one leg.
Living beings that are able to preseve themselves in the manner similar to a god -- but struggle or fail to do so -- no longer fit our anticipation of gods (and therefore are not properly considered to be gods).
I find this statement quite illuminating. We can't exactly preserve ourselves in the manner of gods, but we do have access to remarkable medical advances and a plethora of lifestyle advice (diet, exercise, sleep, stress...) I ofte struggle to maintain a "healthy" lifestyle which perhaps, beyond a certain point, can be counterproductive. Every so often someone dies relatively young, and their friends say "but they were so health conscious!"
So this quote is valuable to think about so that I/we don't lose sight of the proper goal as spelled out by Epicurus. And it's similarly valuable in thinking about our choices and avoidances.
I am mostly interested in the topic of living a happy life, and how that is our goal, not by buying more and more stuff, but with Ataraxia.
Knowing this, I would advise against reading Tending The Epicurean Garden for now. Part of the author's interest seems to be to find similarities between Epicureans and other traditions. I read the book early in my Epicurean journey, and many of these proposed similarities were more confusing than useful. The direction that Cassius lays out is a good one, it seems to me.
"Won't Get Fooled Again"... 
Random thoughts:
I don't think we can be aware of ourselves without something external to us.
We do have interoception, an awareness of our internal sensations. But of course there's always something external to us. And we can't exist without something external to us (food, water, air).
Someone, somewhere (who I believe was worth quoting) said that awareness is awareness of something, not a state of being aware.
Quote from Cassiusbut at the very least you won't be in the position of having to say to yourself "I didn't even try" and if the activity involved is important enough to you
Somewhere I read that this is one of the common deathbed regrets. The key being "if the activity involved is important enough to you."
Happy Twentieth one and all!
There's an interesting paper "The Polytheism of the Epicureans" by Paul Terrence Matthias Jackson which may also be relevant here.
My guess is that Epicurus' take on the gods wasn't primarily negative, but equally positive in his redirected way of thinking about them. But we've moved so far from the Greek ideas of the gods that his ideas on the subject may seem irrelevant to us. So a further question is whether it makes sense for us to attempt to apply the Epicurean ideas of the gods to our modern lives, or is doing so a form of historical reenactment?
Thank you; as are yours! The variety of colors in the various auroras is quite impressive!
From our trip to Alaska a couple of weeks ago:
One can enjoy every other pleasure more if one's mind isn't troubled and one's body is in (reasonably) good working order. That's my general perspective: we need to find that state of equilibrium and good working order (katastematic) as a ground from which to enjoy the stimulative (kinetic) pleasures of life. Even the kinetic pleasure of good memories generally happens easier if we're not anxious or worried or unhealthy.
Agreed. And of course (preaching to the choir) this isn't some sort of mystical state, but confidence in one's worldview through observation and study. And managing (not eliminating!) one's desires using an understanding of the categories of desire. Not magic: philosophy.
Quote from JoshuaThis was because he did not desire any birthday sacrifice or feast; yet he himself sacrificed on the traditional birthdays of Plato and of Socrates, afterwards giving a banquet at which every member of the circle who was able was expected to deliver an address.
--Porphyry, De Vita Plotini
So apparently feasting and sacrifices were part of birthday celebrations for Plato and Socrates. Does this make them cultish? If it makes the Epicureans cultish, they're not alone.
Great cite Joshua !
A quick thought prompted by Don 's post: did Epicurus create a cult around himself?
Did Plato? Aristotle? Epictetus? (&c) They were all the commanding personalities of their schools. Was Epicurus perhaps making his school friendlier, less intimidating? One way of doing that may have been the practice of monthly celebrations. In other words, practices that may seem cultish today may have served functions of which we are completely unaware.
