Posts by Adrastus

Excellent thread.

I just wanted to comment on another aspect of what I think is meant by the Nature of "contemplation" "meditation" and so forth.

Lucretius' Ode to Epicurus in Book 1, gives me a stark reminder of how the ancients thought about the Nature of mind and allowing ones mind to wander or imagine in ones 'mind's eye', at least in dramatic form.

Quote

"When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his mortal eyes to her face and first to withstand her to her face.

Him neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with threatening roar could quell: they only chafed the more the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of nature’s portals.

Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe; whence he returns a conqueror to tell us what can, what cannot come into being; in short on what principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark.

Therefore religion is put underfoot and trampled upon in turn; us his victory brings level with heaven." - Lucretius, De Rereum Natura, Book 1 62-78

So I think about Epicurus' physics and his view of infinite space and time, and infinite atoms and void, as something in which we can 'contemplate/meditate' on when fears about the Gods, primal terror at enormous thoughts or fears about humans overwhelm us. The physics may or may not be 'true' when we consider physics as we know them today, but the whole view of the universe to Epicurus is calming - at least I've found as an object of contemplation - and helps induce the loss of overwhelming fears associated with letting ones imagination run off billions of light years away or into fictive ideas about Gods or other unseeable things ready to strike at us.

I suppose in this way the physics are still immensely useful as, for the contemporary moment, we do not have a scientific view or a scientific cultural discourse that also does not incessantly hound us with thoughts of "other dimensions" or "simulations" that could leave us disconcerted and uneasy. Science isn't supposed to take into account the health of the soul when off discovering or theorizing in the same way Ancient Philosophical systems needed to more or less wrap everything up nice and tidy as to be a system of psychological health or attainment.

I would also submit that Emily Austin's is indeed the best intro book. I recommend and give away copies to friends and amiable family as often as I pique interest in it. But you, good stranger, have the advantage as you have found the community, and I have found the Epicurean community forums and content to be of utmost importance not just in understanding the philosophy, but in thinking with the canon, or "doing" the philosophy. As well as, invaluable minutae of ancient contexts combing through the extant material. The write ups, discussions, and a knowledgable community to engage with your own items of inquiry, and heck, even some of the meme content around here are really good at getting a more organic picture from many more types of discourse and presentation to engage with to apprehend Epicurean Philosophy well enough to glean the fruits during your stay in the Epicurean Garden.

I have similarly more or less dabbled in pagan milieu and practices, rejected the kind of ceaseless 'deconstruction' of some atheist culture into nihilism, absurdism and so forth, and by happy accident discovered the richness and efficacy of Epicurean philosophy and the friendliness of Epicurean community.

Welcome, welcome, welcome!

In the Moral Letters to Lucilius, which is a Stoic writing, they quote our Metrodorus of Lampsacus directly:

"There is certain pleasure akin to saddness."

I'll try to give some commentary

Given the rest of the context of the letter, he seems to be talking about the loss of a loved one to death; and the author appears very indignant with Metrodorus' claim about finding pleasure in saddness, especially of the death of a loved one.

I'm not sure we know Metrodorus' full context in uttering this, but I do not doubt that there can be a mixing of pleasure and saddness in other pains as well as in the death of a loved one, when one's view of death is not colored by a sense of injustice at the nature of death itself rather than the purview of other humans. Vatican Saying 31, for me at least, conjures up this image of life and death that is inherently precarious and that we can do what we can within reason, but we cannot stop death should it descend on us.

"It is possible to provide security against other afflictions, but as far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls" - VC 31

The Stoic writer of this Letter to Lucilius conjures up the image of one's own child on the funeral pyre, which to me is a form of polemic and pressing Metrodorus's claim to a breaking point. He also mentions the notion that Epicureans (perhaps?) may forget their loved ones and go about there lives never thinking of the dead, which doesn't appear to be accurate from the quotes elsewhere in this thread. I don't think Metrodorus' observation breaks though. I have felt a mixing of pain and pleasure in deaths of loved ones when I allowed myself to feel anything I was going to feel about their death without listening to appeals from virtue from inner judgements or caring about outer judgements. I also firmly believe that in embodying the Epicurean mindset (or the closest we may yet get to it), the shared experience of living pleasant experiences; and the cultivating of deeply pleasant relationships with others; and the further contemplation of them in our memories; that in these and other ways pleasure itself is the teleological goal of life. This teleological guide and goal of Pleasure is indeed salvific in that it sooths the pains of life, not by avoiding the realities of death; but in the earnestness with which we live and die.

I sometimes like to use some strange phrasings for fun, and to a lesser extent, to demonstrate in some way I didn't use any A.I. to write.

Yes, I see Epicurus' last day as a preparation for death. An acceptance but relishing in the memories of close friendships, relaying his affection for those present and thinking fondly of the future lives of some of the children of the garden he would be securing with his will. I too could see Vatican saying 47 (I love that one) being an insight into the ancient Epicureans' attitude towards dying.

Another quote that capitvated me in my early reading of Epicurus and still does; is in the letter to Menoceus:

"The art of living well, and dying well are one."

Brings me so much joy hearing this episode. I feel like the ataraxic mind guards against the perils and pains of life, but I think Epicurus redeems the somewhat listless ataraxic state by arguing that emotions are there to guide us towards a sagely life where pleasure and the pleasant life is the teleological goal of life. Emotions are likely not overwhelming to the ataraxic mind, but with the humanizing Epicurean philosophy create that acceptance of nature yet still feeling deep connection to the self and others. If even a wise and intelligent person experiences despair, then that simply means that their arrangement of social and perhaps material reality is not pleasant or comporting to ideal hedonic or Epicurean meleta or advice. It makes so much sense to me at least that the highest expression of a wise life is in community with like minds and alike in their piety, and that even a wise soul can be stuck in social situation; or worse, that will cause them to be unassuagedly disturbed.

The "meaning crisis" for me, has always been a bit of an affront to basic human activity that is so obvious once one embraces natural human relationships. The Epicurean Canon: my sensations, my prolepsis, my emotions; indicates to me all the meaning I could ever want or need to navigate life "meaningfully"; proffering all manner of solution to social and material disturbances. Living pleasantly with friends, returning to an ataraxic mind and katastematic and kenetic pleasure renders life deeply enjoyable and well worth living onward. When I feel like cultivating and tending to the garden of the inner life of the soul and outwardly with friends and family isn't enough, then I choose to pursue something in the public sphere that I reason is good for the "polis", or renders reciprocal justice to kind souls who have helped me and people I care about, or benefit events for organizations that legitmately do good work and calming restless souls who simply have not pursued the Doctrine and Philosophy of Epicurus. I try to make my public workings comport to two or more of those criteria. I'm not sure what else anyone could get up to beyond directly taking the reigns of power in politics or business.

Welcome, DistantLaughter!

Love the user name, btw and I hope you find some degree of comraderie here. There are lots of really nice, thoughtful and intelligent folks here.

Being a 39 year old as well that has put away some beers in his time, I can't blame a guy living through a couple of World Wars for having some drink I suppose. I've certainly stressed over far less in my life.

I always considered that Laertius quote to be deeply instructive and very relevant to my apparently unreasonable disdain for story-telling, lyrics and poetry and so forth. I can't understate the power images and words had over my state of mind before I built up many barriers against it, largely through what it is I've been doing internally with Epicurean Philosophy. Also I think it was Philodemus, I think in On Poetry who wrote that the words and meaning of poetry or song being the real purveyor of beauty or morality within a work of art, and that sentiment I couldn't agree more with. The main issue is some unusual malady in my Soul where there is psychological confusion between the subject of the artist and my Self that distrubs me intensely. So I like extremely specific art or artists, and in my many ways people in general, that I have thoroughly vetted the message of their art and allow into my life to "program" me in hedonic regimen or whom I will trust with abidding Friendship, as I deem them benevolent.

I take the poem as a bit too ambiguous and not sure what I should be reading into "light" and "night" and the images that these men are "seeing". Is it rage against dying, or is it rage against some kind of onset of oppression? My mind tends to go to some form of mysticism, or something akin to the Ode to Epicurus in Lucretius that is a bit more sensible and reasonable interpretation of someone who has thoroughly built up a total view of Life, the Universe and Everything in a Philosophic manner, and is therefore able to achieve some large degree of certainty or ataraxic state of mind. The former would be disturbing to me, while the ladder far less so; but in the end, I agree with some of the other comments here in that I'm not sure what rage accomplishes for the self or for others outside of a literal skirmish.

As for raging on a death bed, that sounds deeply disturbing to anyone who would witness it or may be even the one who is raging. Epicurus' death seems far more settling, instructive and joyful; despite I imagine at the same time it being deeply sorrowful for his friends who were there with him.

I think for me at least the difference between Toxic Positivity and whatever we may deem as healthy, is having methods to be comfortable and ultimately resolve any painful, unpleasant or relationship altering feelings. Still though, happiness is a choice we are making even knowing at least a fair amount of what the world gets up to by choosing to resolve, or at least seek to resolve, emotional and psychic tensions; as opposed to my experiences with resignation to despair and the tug towards oblivion which others certainly experience. It's a lot harder for me to be in relationship, excel at work, parent the children exceptionally, not go on ceaseless benders and so forth; without a bit of cocksure confidence, being silly, a bit of revelry and ultimately giving less of my cares to tragedies and impending doom, even when acknowledging the logical implication that I am saying people ought to care less about me and mine as some mere strangers, or outliers.

Quote from Kalosyni

Yes, we might eventually split off certain threads if the tools need more developement. (I confess that I am not exactly clear about your use of Johari windows).

Sure, thank you for explaining that things are unclear and I need to take a step or two back in terms of what underlying assumptions am I using about EP, me, people, "being human" as to why some schema that is seemingly dealing with self-knowledge has to do with anything. I'll try to be as succinct as possible just for clarity's sake.

1. A story I have is that people often build wrong narratives of who they are or how they should act based purely on ideas we learn about or ideas that are generated for us, rather than the basing them on reasoning from the 3 elements of the Canon in EP. Maybe in Epicurean terms, this would be explain more as simply unreasonable and unexamined fears, rather than some sort of psychological terms like "false selves."

2. Another story I have is that a lot of culture teaches us to not accept/believe/explore things like "emotional reasoning", or reasoning from other sensations that are non-verbal that I understand the Epicurean Canon is talking about. An Epicurean might say that culture teaches us that fears and unpleasant emotions are OK, or wise to feel given potentially oppresive supernatural entities or some narrative of essentially corrupt Humanity; where reasoning from emotions and using pleasure as a guide shows us that there isnothing about humanity that can't be set aright if we banish unreasonable fears and live pleasantly, prudently, honorably and justly realizing the teleology goal of a pleasant life is achieved in these things.

3. From there the Johari Window is just explaining that for many people, they may not realize there are things about themselves, such as supposedly unacceptable feelings, they really don't understand or allow themselves to consider and let be, or to reason about and adjust their outlook accordingly.

So in this way, radical experiences of self-discovery in many mystical or religious systems is more or less frankly explained as information about ourselves that we don't know about or likely refuse to acknowledge. This demystifies, to me at least, the human experience of coming to know one's self well that can be experienced in rather jarring "religious" or "spiritual" sort of ways. Haha, sorry this was long again...

Thanks so much Don, for diving in to the texts! So much more illuminating to work with the original language.

I'll just add one final thought about my relationship to travel. I love the passage in Book 3 of Lucretius on the travel of the disturbed people who go from their house to the city and back, or off to the country and never finding what they are after or being satisfied anywhere. The passage ultimately ends with a notion of fearing death, but not feeling such pull as I did pre-Epicurean Philosophy, I feel like a lot of my desire to travel could be solved by an attitude of "more is less"; meaning, more cultivating in my every day life would mean less effort and time spent thinking about travel or actually traveling. I write, philosophize and otherwise communicate on the internet for the same reasons I travel, which is to try to experience certain things I do not get in my normal surroundings. Namely a sense of community, comraderie and connectedness, but I could experience these things perhaps if I complicated my life a bit by trying to produce or reproduce those experiences in my life more with people around me I know or could get to know.

Cheers!

For me, simplicity in terms of food, travel and things is more about savoring a pleasure, and not growing disgusted by or otherwise ruining a pleasure; and this is another way of saying that I am using the Canon. I take this approach because I live with a nuclear family as well as interesting friends coming and going, and giving a bit too much stuff at times, that I cannot necessarily live my life in accordance with any one particular vision and there is always an on going discourse... or unfortunately boundary-defining argument.

All simplisitic hedonic arguments go out the window once you've actually lived many an hedonically 'gross' situation. Like, for example, have you ever literally always had a birthday cake at the ready? Try being a social parent who tries to mingle with other parents and show up to every kids' birthday party. It's a constant stream of cake and ice cream, and throw in the cultural holidays and my wife's penchant for wanting to get a bit of treat now and then for the kids on a weekend or any other special occassion. Constant cake will destroy whatever love of the stuff on the rarer occasion you used to get cake or any other sweets. You feel repulsed by it, and I imagine if we listened to our bodies more, we would be repulsed by a lot of things that are decadently "pleasurable" due to over exposure rather than some sort of moral quandry. Kinda like someone working at a chocolate factory for too long will absolutely be disgusted by chocolate.

I come to unfortunately subtely resent opportunities to get free food or items or really much of anything, because I want to continue to appreciate and like things that I could continue to appreciate, and like if there weren't always in such ready supply or unwitteningly thrust upon me. More often getting "free" things becomes a felt loss of some sense of pleasure in the food in question or devalues items generally. There is probably some science to this but I think it is a bit better to percieve "consumption" as a form of artful interaction with the pleasures and ideations that food and items give us that just ideas of "simplicity" or "moderation" cannot capture, but needs to be Canonically reasoned through. But yes, I cling to the idea of 'simplicity' and 'minimalism' and convey it in that way when I am surrounded by fun and amiable people that are more into achieving ideas of 'maximizing'; but nothing gets this idea across to them more easily than to talk about how all this stuff they bring into my life makes me feel badly.

Quote from Kalosyni

This may potentially may have some overlap to Philodemus writing on the emotion of anger.

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Adrastus Is your main motivation in bringing this Johari window aimed mainly in the arena of self-improment or helping others with self-improvement?

Very cool about possible overlap to Philodemus. I have 'On Anger', but I feel like the sort of copy I have lends itself to needing an accompanying exposition of the context and ideas within it by a more learned scholar to really enjoy reading it and gleaning the insights from it.

I also think you have a very good understanding of what the 4 quadrants in this model represent.

I suppose my motivation for posting it here was that I saw the topic name of "Conveying Epicurean Philosophy: Study and Practical Applications" and rather than start a new thread, I thought maybe the thread was meant to gather up different tools to use to explain Epicurean philosophy to folks. I had just discovered this tool/framework, and thought it was neat and wanted to write this up to see if an account of it "tracks" with Epicurean philosophy as I, and the many Epicureans here who might read it, understand it. In terms of briefly explaining the more minutae of motivation for explaining it to the people, I explained it to my kids to try a different way of using reasoning to parent them rather than just a simple but ineffective "because I said so" approaches. So, I used it to explain why teaching them things like listening to their emotions and senses is important and tied in forms of entertainment and diversion like video games and TV can lead to a form "self-forgetting" where they are less compelled to engage with other people and activites in ways that might help them learn about themselves.

For my wife, I brought it up because we have been exploring ideas of renegotiating our vows to one another, and I've lightly tied the notion of doing so to Epicurean thought, which she trusts is benevolent though she doesn't study it herself, and this sort of model was meant to picture what we would be getting up to, and how and why. For my friends, they also will likely never read Epicurus or study it deeply, but I like to share things with those among them who are interested to know more and easier ways of entry into understanding Epicurean epistemological methods. Also I think this sort of visual representation could illustrate why Epicurean Philosophy is more hopeful and has achievable goals, versus the more popular and recent "-isms" which I rightly or wrongly judge to be more in the category of a consolatory philosophical tradition; rather than therapeutic and ethical, and ultimately salvific or healing, traditions such as Epicurean Philosophy.

We can delete it all if it doesn't work for this forum, or if it's not right for the intended use of this thread. Also, this morning I had just perused the article you posted in the original post, and had intended to reply to it if I had anything useful to add to it; and didn't mean to entirely distract from anyone wanting to comment on the original post.

Admin Note: The following threads were moved over to its own topic on July 5, 2025.

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I've been toying with the use of some personal interpretations of the Johari Window taught to me by one of my Goddess-like Beings... err I mean, Spiritual-Needs Meeting Friend to speak frankly about simple lessons on the nature of mind and things like "enlightenment" in a non-spooky or mystical way; before explaining why Epicurean methods of reasoning are so unique, useful and important. I have deployed the lesson on my two grade school kids and my wife so far and will try it out with some other adults tomorrow to get their input.

We begin by drawing a classic four quadrant grid:

I explain that Just and Pleasant relationships try to bring both "You" and "They" (the other person) in to the "Negotiable" quadrant, where both people are relatively aware of a situation and can speak honestly and openly about it, while the "Mystery" quadrant is often where a lot of people find themselves in and sometimes the most awful, because they neither know much about what they feel about themselves (or a situation); nor do they interact with caring and knowledgable, or wise enough people to hopefully, teach or assist them.

Coming out of the "Mystery" quadrant honestly and with truly "Knowing Thyself" is best practiced through the Epicurean Canon of be present and attuned to the 3 parts of the Canon - Sensations, Emotions, and Prolepsis - to move from what is a Mystery to what is known about yourself and therefore Negotiable in an inter-personal sense. Here I bring in Epicurean notions of Justice based on promises, contract and so forth as a way of how we interact with one another in the most Pleasant, Prudent, Honorable and Just way possible.

I usually spend a bit of time explaining my experiences within each quadrant and the often emotional distresses of being in the other 3 quadrants besides the "Negotiable" Quadrant; especially to my kids to deliver lessons about secrets, teachers, the treacherous as well as the more dastardly bottom-right of being relatively "asleep" to one's self. To adults, I usually give a little insight into competing philosophical or religious epistemologies and, invite them to tell a story about where they might end up by following these epistemologies.

Anyway, that's just a little tool I am exploring. Let me know if any of you have any thoughts with regards to this.

Hello! Been studying Epicurean Philosophy for about 4 years now and was on the forum awhile back under the name 'Root304' writing all sorts of kooky things. I ended up deleting that account and the email associated with it. Stepped away from EP for the past 6 months or so, and realized that I do not get the good results of a clear head, a pleasant disposition and being really present with people unless I keep at studying Epicurean Philosophy a bit while I get up to other things in life. I hope to try to post a lot less, but make it to online meetings if they are still going on.

I am writing a few articles for a kinda-sorta "Practical" Epicurean Philosophy and Personal blog, as well as, maybe do some audio and video presentations of some kind. I wanted to get a few pieces under my belt before launching it but, it's still coming along. I am really wanting to only keep it to close Friends and Epicureans who may be interested in such discussions.

Anyway, hope you all are doing well!