Perennial Meditations
Perennial Meditations is an ongoing series of short guided contemplations inspired by the writings of Stoics, saints, and sages. One quote. One meditation. One practice to carry into your day.
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Epicurus on the Greatest Good
This is Perennial Meditations. A daily practice.
“Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.”
— Epicurus, Principal Doctrines, XXVII
We have almost entirely misread Epicurus.
He founded his school not in a prestigious hall like Plato’s Academy or Aristotle’s Lyceum, but in a garden outside Athens. It was a private space, deliberately modest, where a small community of friends could live and think together.
Men and women, free and slave, philosopher and ordinary person, were all equally welcome. The garden was not incidental to the philosophy.
It was the philosophy, made visible.
He has come down to us as the philosopher of pleasure. But what gets lost is what he actually meant by pleasure.
Not luxury. Not indulgence. Not the restless accumulation of new experiences that the modern world has made into a way of life.
Epicurus lived mostly on bread and water. Occasionally, he allowed himself a small piece of cheese—which he wrote to a friend he considered a positive feast.
He was not performing austerity.
He had simply discovered that the distance between what he needed and what he had was small enough to cross without anxiety.
That distance, he found, was where contentment lives.
The highest pleasure, he argued, is ataraxia—a Greek word meaning tranquility or freedom from disturbance. Not the thrill of getting what you want, but the deep peace of needing very little.
The person who has learned to want only what is truly available is wealthier than any king whose peace depends on everything going right. Yes, the king has more. He also has more to lose. And the knowledge of what he stands to lose casts a shadow over every feast.
What most people call pleasure, Epicurus would call anxiety wearing a pleasant mask. Picture the expensive dinner eaten while checking the phone. Or the holiday planned around photographing it rather than living it.
They are desires briefly satisfied on their way to becoming desires again.
He proved his own argument at the end of his life.
Dying from kidney stones—in real and considerable pain—he wrote to his friend that the cheerfulness arising from the recollection of his philosophical contemplation was more than enough to counterbalance the physical suffering.
He was not performing.
He was reporting.
The man who had built his life on ataraxia found, when the final test arrived, that it held.
Daily Practice
Identify one simple pleasure available to you today that you have been walking past in search of something more impressive. It could be a conversation, a meal, a moment of stillness. Attempt to give it your complete attention. Notice what happens when you stop treating it as a stepping stone to something better and simply let it be enough.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well.
J.W.
P.S. If you found today’s meditation helpful, consider sharing it with a friend!