I Call It Epicureanism

The Epicurus Reader is one of those books that you need to read in print. You should not listen to this book in audio format. I did not listen to it. I read it on Kindle. I am not sure an audio version exists.

It’s a book I read in my room in Buenos Aires eating excessive amounts of peanut butter from the jar. I sat listening to Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You.” That’s not terribly relevant to the philosophy book.

The Argentine radio station was playing the Stevie Wonder song yesterday morning and I listened to it all day long on Spotify. I was at the grocery listening to it; I was at the gym listening to it; I was even walking down the street listening to it with my sleek green and black headphones. I listened to this song fifty times yesterday in various places in my house. This may symbolize my devotion to music.

I had a “My Cherie Amour” phase in the past. For the non-aficionados, that’s another sad but wonderful Stevie Wonder song. I always thought these songs said something great. They exclaim that life is sad, but that it’s also joyful.

I saw Stevie Wonder one time at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Other groups played, but I remember Stevie Wonder. Barack Obama spoke.

I was alone in my room listening to Stevie Wonder. I danced. And then the key changes surprised me. The song is post-disco. The bass line drives. It is an elegiac song. It is ironic that it was on the radio.

I send a call-out to all my friends with whom I enjoyed soul and R&B.

That is all extraneous information, but I thought the Epicurus book was interesting. It detailed Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus would recommend eating peanut butter from the jar. He’d recommend drinking copious amounts of water. Epicureanism is about living life.

Epicureanism has some tenets, one of which is the pleasure principle. Pleasure is the privation of pain.

Is pleasure what we experience when we’re not in pain? I don’t think so. Pleasure is something greater than the absence of pain.

The book took me a long time to digest, but I read it very quickly. I like talking about the Stevie Wonder song.

Epicurus was an interesting dude. I suppose he had a lot of friends. I like his ideas.

I first became acquainted with his philosophy in a class. This was a class in which I contested the meaning of what the Stoics said. This class was held in a warm classroom with weird carpet. I don’t remember the color of the carpet. I think it was blue. The chalkboard was green.

For some reason I thought his philosophy was more palatable than the Stoic idea of non-committal to life. I don’t like the Stoics. The Stoics said that people are like inanimate objects. I disagree with that notion.

I tried singing the Stevie Wonder song. It was nice and melodic. Who wrote this song? How did Stevie Wonder design it so that it pulls on my heartstrings?