Epicurean Lifestyle: In Hindsight not very Epic

[Holder of the Heel]

Link to original post: [drupal=5181]Epicurean Lifestyle: In Hindsight not very Epic[/drupal]

Here ya go folks, a tl;dr! :D

Posted this a few minutes ago in the Happy Thread in the Pool Room, but its length made me think that it might even justify a blog and if we're lucky, can get some meaningful life discussion going, and this way I can get potential feedback from both threads.


"I'm going to write out a lot, more than most would care to read, but I'm going to type it out because it is a quick and easy way to flesh out the things in my head. Even if no one really responds it is still okay, like how in life/movies/shows when someone dies and a person talks to the body, it is really him just expressing his feelings.

I remember not too long ago I posted in here claiming that there was no point in unhappiness and that happiness was always the better choice and is always an available option. I still think this way, controversial as it was. I always feel that that I have control of myself, and that when something obstructs me in life, I don't experience what most people do where they ask questions and need others to answer. I answer all of the questions pertaining to my being all by myself. Something I have perhaps developed because of my Epicurean lifestyle. But that statement is the reason why I am posting here.

What I mean by Epicurean is that I live to please myself and don't involve myself in public affairs much because it saves me from a lot of the negative and exhausting energy that flies around out there, that would threaten the control I have finally obtained in life. I've spent almost all of my life actually having no control over myself, always thinking that someone other than myself needs to tell me that I'm happy, and that I matter. I've always been chasing the elusive idea of love and thinking I have it and that it is the only thing that could possibly matter. Of course, that was a very self-destructive lifestyle, and I continuously kept wasting years of my life building my existence off of people that I later find distasteful until suddenly in the last two love interests I ended up just losing all feeling and dropping them out of the blue. It just all stopped.

I used to think living like an Epicurean was not a very good idea. In fact, I think I still might think that way. I thought living like a Stoic (the rival Hellenistic philosophical way of thinking) where you through yourself into the world of negative energy and tried to manage it and make it better, and all the while never being affected by it, hence the word stoic. Just typing that it seems that being a Stoic is by far better, and is more like what I've said in the first paragraph. Choosing happiness no matter what was around you. But before I knew it, after graduating from high school, I looked around and noticed I was an Epicurean.

I even took it a step further and became a hermit, I didn't find myself invested in any human being or interested in many activities. The only things that really interest me video games, and sometimes manga and philosophy will come by and acquire my attention. I can't help but think that I ended up this way, being a wannabe Stoic, who believes that happiness is always an option, but isn't capable of really proving that like a Stoic actually would. I've spent my life either alone or spending it with a special someone, all the while not being interested in things. Now I come out the other end at 19 years old. What do I have to show for it? Am I smarter? Am I more skilled at things? Do I invest in anything? Can I be sociable? Am I funner to be around? I don't feel 19 in a lot of ways because of this way I have been living, I've always been a little Epicurean (thanks to introversion). Always. But now is my Zenith, and I am wondering if living in this way is really that good. I mean, I am never hurt like I could be when I wasn't full-blown Epicurean in style, and I do believe that I have obtained wisdom with passively watching things that people in the flux of existence would probably miss in that confusing mass that seems alien to me now, where most people probably see at least some order and purpose.

But anyways, the point is, I think I am happy, but I do look around and notice there isn't a whole lot going on in life right now, and I somehow find that I dug this hole for the sake of happiness and sanity that may be hard to get out of. To get out of for what? Lose this peace for what? Excitement? That life sucking thing called love? Purpose (I feel it is needed to say I view purpose as something that we simply put a lot of our life into)? Is there any of that out there for me? As someone who loves fantasy and surreal things in books and anime, can I really be interested? As someone who thinks love is like having a grown man trying to stuff a square through the circle space in a shape sorter toy, where so much as to be sacrificed, where rationality just goes out the window and that is suppose to be the beautiful thing about it?

I don't feel unhappy, though I feel a bit lacking still, like I am conscious that I am not taking risks. Or like a video game that has no flaws but just isn't as fun as some games that is funner despite having flaws. It isn't that I think perfection is boring. I don't even think I've acquired a state of perfect ease with myself, that does not seem at all possible, even in theory. I am not quite sure for once what to do, and I am getting quite tired and self-conscious of repeatedly typing the pronoun "I", so there. XD"

 

[Jam Stunna]

I think it would be helpful for you to define Epicureanism for those who are unfamiliar with it, or at least Epicureanism as you understand and practice it.

In response to your blog, I think that your lifestyle is a self-deceiving way to live, and I think that you suspect this as well, and that accounts for what you find to be "lacking" in your life. Whether you like it or not, other people do have control over your life. I could ban you right now; that decision might get reversed, but until the appeals process plays out, you're still banned at my whim.

Seeking pleasure and happiness are good things, but seeking them at the expense of engagement with the larger world seems like surrender.

 

[Dre89]

Seeking happiness through introversion and escapism is no different to seeking it through engaging the external world. It's just that the latter has been favoured as a social construct, as our society generally favours extroverts.

It pisses me off when extroverted people tell me I need to get out more. They don't understand that not everyone enjoys going out as much as them and isn't as dependant on other people as they are.

The only unhappiness I gain from my introversion is occassionally feeling alienated, and the social pressure to engage the external world more. Both of these are just social constructs. Despite having them drilled into you since you were born and them being everywhere, it becomes easier to deal with once you realise they're just constructs and at the end of the day they're just another way for other people to gain happiness, which ultimately is just s neurological sensation.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I gave a brief outline what I mean when I say Epicurean when I said I lived out of the mess of the external world for the sake of me being happy and more interested in pleasing merely myself, which is basically what the Epicurean doctrine suggests more or less. As for what you say about deceiving myself, I feel there may be some truth in the idea, it isn't the first time I've done that. It is strange that I am experiencing what I mentioned where people usually don't know how to feel, I always understood what was going on in my head, but now I'm not entirely sure that I really know but I just think I do. I mean, how does one test that really? It is a confusing affair.

I have to agree with you Dre on your sentiment that being introverted doesn't really make you any less happy. Perhaps what you say about alienation is the word to explain what I am experiencing now. I feel most things are very foreign to me, and I tend to think as a result that I'm foreign to myself. My only issue with all of this is that I feel that things are hardly worth an effort and that everything requires a lot of effort to put up with. I just don't really know what my future is going to be like, like what is someone like me to do in this world? I mean, even I would like to get out from under my parents' roof at one point, I'm not even fond of my family.

All of this would be quite frightening if I wasn't so emotionally introverted. XD Thank you both for responding, that is really awesome of you guys. :D

 

[Jam Stunna]

I have to agree with you Dre on your sentiment that being introverted doesn't really make you any less happy. Perhaps what you say about alienation is the word to explain what I am experiencing now. I feel most things are very foreign to me, and I tend to think as a result that I'm foreign to myself. My only issue with all of this is that I feel that things are hardly worth an effort and that everything requires a lot of effort to put up with. I just don't really know what my future is going to be like, like what is someone like me to do in this world? I mean, even I would like to get out from under my parents' roof at one point, I'm not even fond of my family.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being introverted, and I agree with Dre on that point. But extroverts will always have a leg up on introverts, because social constructs benefit the people who actually engage with them. How would a society built to favor introverts even work?

However, the section I quoted doesn't sound like you're simply an introvert. Feeling alienated from the world, feeling like you don't want to make an effort, feeling like love isn't worth it...these are difficult feelings to deal with, and I think that being isolated may make them harder for you to deal with.