Hello, nice to be here!
I've actually lurked on the old website quite a bit, and only now got around to joining the group. I take the "live unknown" advice very seriously, and more and more so as I get older, but after finally deleting all my social media accounts this year after many years of procrastinating, I felt the need to still be a part of a like-minded community, and so here I am!
I arrived at Epicureanism by way of Stoicism. Working in a university library, I was shelving books and came across one called (I think) A Guide to the Good Life -- which is not a bad book at all, really. Being an atheist since childhood and having flirted with, then abandoned, Buddhism, I found this ancient Greek philosophy to be a breath of fresh air, and began digging into it. But having been subjected to Catholic education and 4 years in the army, I found Stoicism's emphasis on duty, virtue, and blindly accepting your lot in life to be too much for me -- I had had enough of that stuff. At some point in my readings, I stumbled upon Epicurus, and realized I had found something that struck a chord in me. That was about 20 years ago, and I haven't found anything else that speaks to me in the same way.
