tonytan4ever · March 15, 2021 13:49 · tonytan4ever · Mar 15, 2021
diff --git a/Dictation 2020.05.09 b/Dictation 2020.05.09
 This is a philosopher who helps us think about money, capitalism, and our runaway consumer societies. Epicurus was an ancient
 Greek, born in 341 B.C. What made him famous was that he spent all his life trying to work out the largest puzzle there is:
 what makes people happy?

 Philosophers before him had discussed at length what could make people good. Epicurus prefer to look at what's fun. Unfor-
 -tunately, the world was bitter and bitchy even then, and when Epicurus had set up a school to study happiness, the rumors
 went off the scale. There were tales that school hosted ten-course feasts and orgies every night; Epicurus was said by one
 critic to have orgasmed 18 times in a single evening in a bed filled with virgins. It wasn't true.

 Epicurus and his team were studying happiness, but they were doing it very soberly. The philosopher owned only two cloaks,
 and lived on bread, olives, and for a treat, an occasional slice of cheese. As for the bedroom, he merely responded demure-
 -ly that he had married philosophy.

 Having patiently studied happiness for many years, Epicurus came to a set of remarkable and revolutionary conclusions about
 what we actually need to be happy. He proposed that we typically make three mistakes when thinking about happiness.

 Firstly, we think happiness means having romantic, sexual relationships. But Epicurus looked around, and saw so many un-
 -happy couples. Their unions marred by jealousy, misunderstanding, cheating, and bitterness. At the same time, he observed
 how much nicer friendships are; how people tend to be so decent and unpossessive with their friends. Friendship seemed to
 be where human nature was at its sweetest. The only problem Epicurus noted, was that we don't see our friends enough.

 The next thing we ordinarily think we need to be happy is a lot of money. But we tend not probably to factor in the un-
 -believable sacrices we are gonna have to make to get this money, the jealousy, the backbiting, the long hours. What makes
 work really satisfying, Epicurus believed, isn't money -- but it's when we are able to work alone or in small groups like
 in a bakery or boat repair shop, and when we feel we are helping others, and in our own minor way, improving the world.

 It isn't really large sums or status that we want deep down. It's a sense of making a difference. 

 And lastly, Epicurus observed how obsessed we are with luxury, espeically involving houses and beautiful serene locations.
 But beneath our love of luxury, there's really something else we are trying to get at. 

 What we want is a feeling of calm. We want our minds pure, free, not full of the normal bothering chaos. But the great 
 question is, does luxury actually make us calm? Epicurus wasn't so sure. Having looked at happiness in depth, Epicurus 
 announced a revolutionary set of insights -- that you really need only three things to be happy in this life.

 Firstly, you need your friends around. No sex, no orgies, just your mates. Enough of seen them only now and then, it's 
 regularity of contact that counts. So he did that thing that most of us occasionally dream about doing but never actually
 get around to -- he bought a big house and started living with all his friends. Everyone at their own quarters, and there
 was pleasant shared areas too. There was always someone nice to talk to in the kitchen. 

 Secondly, everyone downshifted. All the members of the commune stopped working for other people. They took big pay cuts 
 in return for doing their own stuff. Some did farming, some cooking, some pottery or writing. 

 And thirdly, Epicurus and his friends stopped thinking you could be calm just by having a beautiful view to look out on.
 They devoted themselves to finding calm in their own minds -- to spending time on their own, reflecting, writing stuff down,
 reading things, meditating. The experiment was so successful -- the members of the commune's so happy; the idea spread
 like a wildfire. 

 Epicurean communities openned up all around Mediterranean. At the height of the movement, there were 400,000 people liv-
 -ing in communes from Spain to Palestine. It was only the Christian church that ended things in the fifith century, but
 they must have respected the community somehow, 'cause they converted them all into monasteries. What we know as monaster-
 -ies are really just Epicurian communes with a Christian top soil. 

 Another interesting fact -- Karl Marx in his Phd thesis on Epicurus, and what we call communism -- that gigantic doer,
 joyless, failed systtem -- is really a grown up, corrupted, not very successful version of Epicurieanism. 

 The real legacy of Epicurus is that human beings aren't really good at making themselves happy, chiefly because they think
 it's so easy. We think we know it's about sex, money, luxury -- we just wonder how to secure all these -- but, "No", says
 Epicurus -- reflect on the moments that truely bring your happiness and they aren't to do with these. Have the courage to
 change your life, in accordance with the moments that actually deliver satisfaction -- you might end up living in a very
 different way, out in the country, with just cheese, a couple of cloaks, a few philosophy books, and some very good friends
 down the corridor.
	This is a philosopher who helps us think about money, capitalism, and our runaway consumer societies. Epicurus was an ancient
	Greek, born in 341 B.C. What made him famous was that he spent all his life trying to work out the largest puzzle there is:
	what makes people happy?

	Philosophers before him had discussed at length what could make people good. Epicurus prefer to look at what's fun. Unfor-
	-tunately, the world was bitter and bitchy even then, and when Epicurus had set up a school to study happiness, the rumors
	went off the scale. There were tales that school hosted ten-course feasts and orgies every night; Epicurus was said by one
	critic to have orgasmed 18 times in a single evening in a bed filled with virgins. It wasn't true.

	Epicurus and his team were studying happiness, but they were doing it very soberly. The philosopher owned only two cloaks,
	and lived on bread, olives, and for a treat, an occasional slice of cheese. As for the bedroom, he merely responded demure-
	-ly that he had married philosophy.

	Having patiently studied happiness for many years, Epicurus came to a set of remarkable and revolutionary conclusions about
	what we actually need to be happy. He proposed that we typically make three mistakes when thinking about happiness.

	Firstly, we think happiness means having romantic, sexual relationships. But Epicurus looked around, and saw so many un-
	-happy couples. Their unions marred by jealousy, misunderstanding, cheating, and bitterness. At the same time, he observed
	how much nicer friendships are; how people tend to be so decent and unpossessive with their friends. Friendship seemed to
	be where human nature was at its sweetest. The only problem Epicurus noted, was that we don't see our friends enough.

	The next thing we ordinarily think we need to be happy is a lot of money. But we tend not probably to factor in the un-
	-believable sacrices we are gonna have to make to get this money, the jealousy, the backbiting, the long hours. What makes
	work really satisfying, Epicurus believed, isn't money -- but it's when we are able to work alone or in small groups like
	in a bakery or boat repair shop, and when we feel we are helping others, and in our own minor way, improving the world.

	It isn't really large sums or status that we want deep down. It's a sense of making a difference.

	And lastly, Epicurus observed how obsessed we are with luxury, espeically involving houses and beautiful serene locations.
	But beneath our love of luxury, there's really something else we are trying to get at.

	What we want is a feeling of calm. We want our minds pure, free, not full of the normal bothering chaos. But the great
	question is, does luxury actually make us calm? Epicurus wasn't so sure. Having looked at happiness in depth, Epicurus
	announced a revolutionary set of insights -- that you really need only three things to be happy in this life.

	Firstly, you need your friends around. No sex, no orgies, just your mates. Enough of seen them only now and then, it's
	regularity of contact that counts. So he did that thing that most of us occasionally dream about doing but never actually
	get around to -- he bought a big house and started living with all his friends. Everyone at their own quarters, and there
	was pleasant shared areas too. There was always someone nice to talk to in the kitchen.

	Secondly, everyone downshifted. All the members of the commune stopped working for other people. They took big pay cuts
	in return for doing their own stuff. Some did farming, some cooking, some pottery or writing.

	And thirdly, Epicurus and his friends stopped thinking you could be calm just by having a beautiful view to look out on.
	They devoted themselves to finding calm in their own minds -- to spending time on their own, reflecting, writing stuff down,
	reading things, meditating. The experiment was so successful -- the members of the commune's so happy; the idea spread
	like a wildfire.

	Epicurean communities openned up all around Mediterranean. At the height of the movement, there were 400,000 people liv-
	-ing in communes from Spain to Palestine. It was only the Christian church that ended things in the fifith century, but
	they must have respected the community somehow, 'cause they converted them all into monasteries. What we know as monaster-
	-ies are really just Epicurian communes with a Christian top soil.

	Another interesting fact -- Karl Marx in his Phd thesis on Epicurus, and what we call communism -- that gigantic doer,
	joyless, failed systtem -- is really a grown up, corrupted, not very successful version of Epicurieanism.

	The real legacy of Epicurus is that human beings aren't really good at making themselves happy, chiefly because they think
	it's so easy. We think we know it's about sex, money, luxury -- we just wonder how to secure all these -- but, "No", says
	Epicurus -- reflect on the moments that truely bring your happiness and they aren't to do with these. Have the courage to
	change your life, in accordance with the moments that actually deliver satisfaction -- you might end up living in a very
	different way, out in the country, with just cheese, a couple of cloaks, a few philosophy books, and some very good friends
	down the corridor.