Epicureans were "Enlightened" before their time. We begin discussing Catherine Wilson's How to Be an Epicurean today in Happiness (as well as the other texts we're separately studying, like *Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness, **Jennifer Michael Hecht's Happiness Myth, and #Alan Watts's The Book. And perhaps some will be interested in Gill Hasson's Happiness.)
Aristotle believed that happiness was comprised of pleasure and a sense of life well-lived. Today's research agrees, suggesting that "happiness" is defined by your overall satisfaction with your life as well as how you feel from day to day. ... Identify your own, personal definition of "happiness." Learn why we need to be happy and what often gets in the way Develop habits that help you create and maintain happiness long-term Learn how to be happy when you're stuck in an unhappy situation Discover the often-overlooked happiness that surrounds you every day While happiness is not feeling good all the time you do have the ability to control how you feel... g'rWilson notes the Epicureans' 17th century revival and the Utilitarians' indebtedness to them in the 19th. "There is no ruling mind or master plan," no guarantee of human survival (let alone flourishing), no ultimate excuse for complacency in securing our peace and tranquility. Our ground-time here is brief, our terminal destination is not distant; we'd better figure out how to enjoy ourselves while we can.
And, do it with humility and an awareness that we're not all that special, compared to our companions of other species. "We should beware of supposing that human perception sets any kind of standard..." Try to see the world through your dog's eyes, and nose (like Alexandra Horowitz) and suddenly the familiar old world is re-enchanted.
The Epicureans were early onto something like Darwinian selection and the insight that "time, chance, and the operation of the forces described by physics and chemistry have been sufficient to produce everything we see around us." It comes, it goes, the reward for virtue is virtue itself.
"No philosopher who is honest about it can give you a formula for being happy all the time. Nevertheless..."
"We cannot rule it out that some singularity, unpredictable by our current physics, should bring about the total collapse of our universe two minutes from now." Better not waste a second, then. A tendency to fall apart is built into the nature of things, but our atoms are not scattered yet. Our social nature insures our capacity for conscience and rectitude and, yes, happiness.
==
* I used to think that the topic of positive psychology was happiness, that the gold standard for measuring happiness was life satisfaction, and that the goal of positive psychology was to increase life satisfaction. I now think that the topic of positive psychology is well-being, that the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing, and that the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing. This theory, which I call well-being theory, is very different from authentic happiness theory, and the difference requires explanation.” ― Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being
“Depression is now ten times as prevalent as it was in 1960, and it strikes at a much younger age. The mean age of a person’s first episode of depression forty years ago was 29.5, while today it is 14.5 years. This is a paradox, since every objective indicator of well-being—purchasing power, amount of education, availability of music, and nutrition—has been going north, while every indicator of subjective well-being has been going south. How is this epidemic to be explained?”
― Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
** “We seem obsessed with motivation, rallying ourselves to something beyond the life available to us right now, and we treat this motivation as if it were a major part of the history of wisdom, which it is not.”
“Aurelius says that one reason it doesn't matter how long you live is that this is not theatre, that the whole is not the thing. Each moment is the thing. "The soul obtains its own end, wherever the limit of life may be fixed. Not as...in a play...where the whole action is incomplete if anything cuts it short; but in every part and wherever it be stopped, it makes what has been set before it full and complete, so that it can say, 'I have what is my own.”
― The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong
# “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
― The Culture of Counter-Culture: Edited Transcripts
“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
― The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
The Epicureans were early onto something like Darwinian selection and the insight that "time, chance, and the operation of the forces described by physics and chemistry have been sufficient to produce everything we see around us." It comes, it goes, the reward for virtue is virtue itself.
"No philosopher who is honest about it can give you a formula for being happy all the time. Nevertheless..."
"We cannot rule it out that some singularity, unpredictable by our current physics, should bring about the total collapse of our universe two minutes from now." Better not waste a second, then. A tendency to fall apart is built into the nature of things, but our atoms are not scattered yet. Our social nature insures our capacity for conscience and rectitude and, yes, happiness.
==
* I used to think that the topic of positive psychology was happiness, that the gold standard for measuring happiness was life satisfaction, and that the goal of positive psychology was to increase life satisfaction. I now think that the topic of positive psychology is well-being, that the gold standard for measuring well-being is flourishing, and that the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing. This theory, which I call well-being theory, is very different from authentic happiness theory, and the difference requires explanation.” ― Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being
“Depression is now ten times as prevalent as it was in 1960, and it strikes at a much younger age. The mean age of a person’s first episode of depression forty years ago was 29.5, while today it is 14.5 years. This is a paradox, since every objective indicator of well-being—purchasing power, amount of education, availability of music, and nutrition—has been going north, while every indicator of subjective well-being has been going south. How is this epidemic to be explained?”
― Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
** “We seem obsessed with motivation, rallying ourselves to something beyond the life available to us right now, and we treat this motivation as if it were a major part of the history of wisdom, which it is not.”
“Aurelius says that one reason it doesn't matter how long you live is that this is not theatre, that the whole is not the thing. Each moment is the thing. "The soul obtains its own end, wherever the limit of life may be fixed. Not as...in a play...where the whole action is incomplete if anything cuts it short; but in every part and wherever it be stopped, it makes what has been set before it full and complete, so that it can say, 'I have what is my own.”
― The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong
# “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
― The Culture of Counter-Culture: Edited Transcripts
“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
― The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
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