It’s No Good Without This | Epicurus’ Secret to the Good Life

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14Ryan Holiday: Hey there, just a heads up, I'm going to be on tour this summer and fall. You can come see me in San Francisco and Portland in June. You can see me in Australia and New Zealand in October. In August, I'm mixing my months up here. but in August, you can see me in Chicago and Minneapolis and Detroit. Then I'll be on the East Coast sometime in November and December. Anyways, grab tickets to that, dailystoiclive.com. Hope to see you there. It's no good without this. Maybe it'll help you get ahead. Maybe it will help you get rich. Maybe it will help you get closer to power, help you keep power. As we see with Seneca compromises can pay off, but they come at a high cost.

1:00Ryan Holiday: Seneca was more pragmatic, more ambitious, more willing to turn a blind eye than his fellow Stoics, like Thrasia, who I profile in Lives of the Stoics. And this made him rich. It made him powerful. But he paid for it with his integrity and his peace. And in the end, he paid for it with his life. For what is a man prophet, it goes one of the most haunting questions in the book of Matthew, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul. We forget this timeless wisdom and these cautionary tales at our peril. It will not turn out differently for us. We will not be the exception. Do not lie to yourself.

1:41Ryan Holiday: Do not trade your soul away, because once it's gone, you cannot get it back. No amount of power or success will be worth it. No earthly reward is worth your values or your ability to look yourself in the mirror.

2:05Ryan Holiday: Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to The Daily Stoic Podcast. In the old days, in the ancient days, the Epicureans and the Stoics were rivals. They hated each other. In fact, there's one Stoic I talk about in Lives of the Stoics, this guy named Diotimus, who so hated Epicurus that he writes this series of letters that are purportedly to be by Epicurus that are in fact forgeries to kind of frame the Epicureans as these hedonists, as these liars, as these bad influences. None of it was true. This is obviously a betrayal of Stoicism, but I think it just highlights the rivalry that was long believed to exist between these two major philosophical schools.

2:51Ryan Holiday: In some ways, kind of the narcissism of small differences, because the Stoics and the Epicureans were closer than one might imagine, the Epicureans weren't these pleasure-loving hedonists, and the Stoics weren't these pleasure-hating gluttons for punishments, not by any means. as we are going to talk about, as you are going to see in today's episode. But I think it's worth pointing out, you know, who does Seneca quote more than any other philosopher? It's Epicurus. He quotes his rivals. He says, because I read like a spy in the enemy's camp. He said, I'll quote even a bad author if the line is good.

3:27Ryan Holiday: Well, what we're going to be doing today is quoting a whole letter, an actual letter, not a fraudulent one, from Epicurus himself. This is Epicurus' letter to Minesius. It's a fascinating letter, one I think you absolutely should listen to. It's sort of laying out his understanding of both ethics and the aesthetic life, how one finds pleasure not in sex or drugs, rock and roll or whatever, but in virtue itself. And it's never a bad time to hear someone speak as eloquently of virtue and the pleasures of the good life as Epicurus does in this letter. Enjoy. And if you want to read some more Epicurus, there is a great book called The Art of Living, which is from Penguin Classics.

4:18Ryan Holiday: It's a collection of Epicurus's writings and his fragments. I used it as a source and stillness is the key. and I think you will like that. I would check that out and carry it the painted porch. I will link to it in today's episode. Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul. And the man who says that the age for philosophy has either not yet come or has gone by is like the man who says that the age for happiness is not yet come to him or has passed away. Wherefore, both when young and old a man must study philosophy, that as he grows old he may be young in blessings through the grateful recollection of what has been, and that in youth he may be old as well, since he will know no fear of what is to come.

5:18We must then meditate on the things that make our happiness, seeing that when that is with us, we have all but when it is absent, we do all to win it. The things that I used increasingly to commend to you these do and practice considering them to be the first principles of the good life. First of all, believe that God is a being immortal and blessed even as the common idea of a God is engraved on men's minds and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness. But believe about him everything that can uphold his blessedness and immortality. For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision.

6:12But they are not such as the many believe them to be, for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. For the statements of the many about the gods are not conceptions derived from sensation, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest misfortunes befall the wicked and the greatest blessings, the good, by the gift of the gods. For men being accustomed always to their own virtues welcome those like themselves but regard all that is not of their nature as alien.

7:04Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us for all good and evil consists in sensation but death is deprivation of sensation and therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable not because it adds to it an infinite span of time but because it takes away the craving for immortality for there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living so that the man speaks but idly who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation.

7:54For that which gives no trouble when it comes is but an empty pain in anticipation. So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us, but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since the former it is not, and the latter are no more. But the many, at one moment, shun death as the greatest of evils, at another, yearn for it as a respite from the evils of life. But the wise man neither seeks to escape life, nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him, nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil.

8:51And just as with food, he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant. And he who counsels the young man to live well, but the old man to make a good end, is foolish, not merely because of the desirability of life, but also because it is the same training which teaches to live well and to die well. Yet, much worse still, is the man who says it is good not to be born. But, once born, make haste to pass the gates of death. For if he says this from conviction, why does he not pass away out of life?

9:44For it is open to him to do so, if he had firmly made up his mind to this. But if he speaks in jest, his words are idle among men who cannot receive them. We must then bear in mind that the future is neither ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it as if it will certainly not come. We must consider that of desires some are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary, and others merely natural, and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the body, and others for very life. The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the soul's freedom from distor.

10:46Epicurus Letter to Menezes Two of Two Bants Since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear. And when this is once secured for us, all the tempest of the soul is dispersed, since the living creature has not to wander as though in search of something that is missing, and to look for some other thing by which he can fulfill the good of the soul and the good of the body. For it is then that we have need of pleasure when we feel pain owing to the absence of pleasure. But when we do not feel pain, we no longer need pleasure.

11:35And for this cause, we will call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us. And from pleasure, we begin every act of choice and avoidance. And to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.

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14:44And since pleasure is the first good and natural to us, for this reason, we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to us as the result of them. And similarly, we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to us when we have endured pains for a long time. Every pleasure, then because of its natural kinship to us, is good. Yet not every pleasure is to be chosen, even as every pain also is an evil. Yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided. Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages, we must form our judgment on all these matters.

15:39For the good on certain occasions we treat as bad, and conversely, the bad as good. And again, independence of desire we think a great good, not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but that, if we do not possess many, we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest pleasure in luxury who least need it, and that all that is natural is easy to be obtained, but that which is superfluous is hard. And so plain savers bring us a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet when all the pain due to want is removed, and bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips.

16:33To grow accustomed, therefore, to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries, disposes us better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune. When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit.

17:47Of all this, the beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy. For from prudence are sprung all the other virtues, and it teaches us that it is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and justly, nor, again, to live a life of prudence, honor, and justice without living pleasantly. For the virtues are by nature bound up with the pleasant life, and the pleasant life is inseparable from them. For indeed who, think you, is a better man than he who holds reverent opinions concerning the gods, and is at all times free from fear of death, and has reasoned out the end ordained by nature.

18:42He understands that the limit of good things is easy to fulfill and easy to attain, whereas the course of ills is either short in time or slight in pain. He laughs at destiny, whom some have introduced as the mistress of all things. He thinks that with us lies the chief power in determining events, some of which happen by necessity and some by chance, and some are within our control. For while necessity cannot be called to account, he sees that chance is inconstant. But that which is in our control is subject to no master, and to it are naturally attached praise and blame. For indeed, it were better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of the natural philosophers.

19:40For the former suggests a hope of placating the gods by worship, whereas the latter involves a necessity that knows no placation. As to chance, he does not regard it as a god as most men do, for in a god's acts there is no disorder, nor as an uncertain cause of all things. for he does not believe that good and evil are given by chance to man for the framing of a blessed life, but that opportunities for great good and great evil are afforded by it. He therefore thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a man's actions that what is well chosen should fail, rather than that what is ill-chosen should be successful owing to chance.

20:36Meditate, therefore, on these things and things akin to them, night and day, by yourself, and with a companion like to yourself. And never shall you be disturbed, waking, or asleep, but you shall live like a God among men. for a man who lives among immortal blessings is not like to a mortal being.