The Garden of Epicurious

A few months ago I awoke in the middle of the night to a harrowing shriek. It was a terrifying sound. My mind started thinking of horrible possibilities, like someone in pain or dying. I got out of bed and looked out my window to the dimly lit street below. There they were. A pair of foxes. One tilted its head back and screamed.

The sound was the call of a red fox. No one was dying or in agony. It was simply two foxes out for a midnight stroll.

My sense of hearing is not faulty, but my mind certainly did play tricks on me. According to the Greek philosopher Epicurious, our senses, though not perfect, are the most reliable way to perceive the world around. It’s our mind that can deceive us.

Like many Greek philosophers at the time, he believed the goal of life was to find happiness of the soul or eudaimonia. We perceive our happiness however in a flawed way because of our mind.

When I first read about Epicurious (in Eric Weiner’s wonderful book on philosophers) I immediately thought of the culinary website.* My mind deceived me again. The school established by Epicurous (in 306 BCE), known as Kepos or simply The Garden, is quite removed from the connotation of epicurean today. The Garden was a commune outside the walls of Athens removed from the public life and indulgence of the city. Friendships were the core of this communal life.

The philosophy was not about the pleasures of food and drink. This was not the path to happiness according to Epicurious. Once you satisfy one desire, you strive for the next one, or as Eric Weiner calls it: “Just-A-Bit-More-ism”. Our minds are constantly recalibrating so it becomes an endless pursuit. We don’t know when enough is enough. In happiness research this is called the “hedonistic treadmill”.

Epicurious didn’t see pleasure as the opposite of pain but rather the absence of pain. The ancient Greek word is ataraxia or lack of disturbance. Imagine you have an intense physical pain, and someone offers you a brownie to ease it. Of course this does not help. The only way to be happier is to get rid of the pain. This may sound like an absurd scenario but we know this happens – attempting to cover over a real pain with a trivial pleasure (or what Epicurious called an “empty” desire).

Desiring something suggests you lack something, which is a form of pain. Rather, you want to strive for the absence of this mental pain or disturbance. A state of tranquility.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not

Epicurious, Ancient Greek philosopher, 341 – 270 BC

If you read my previous post (or even glanced at the extravagant array of rosés on the cover photo), you can see I enjoy some indulgences. I had enough bottles at one or two, but I wanted to try “just a bit more”. I love trying new foods and cooking different dishes. Food in The Garden was simple. People generally drank water, though they were allowed half a pint of wine each day. Maybe I could survive?

Unlikely. But there are nuggets of this philosophy that appeal. Eric Weiner suggests shifting from “just a bit more” to “good enough”: “Good enough represents an attitude of deep gratitude toward whatever happens at you.”

Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance

Epicurious, Ancient Greek philosopher, 341 – 270 BC

Staying present to appreciate what I have is a good lesson for me. All too often “what’s next?” pops into my head. Like the wail of the fox, this is a disturbance I should not worry about. It’s my mind leading me astray. More likely, the good is right here in the present.

*Interestingly, Epicurious.com has stopped posting new recipes with beef to promote a more sustainable way to cook. According to The Planet on the Plate, almost 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally come from livestock and 61 percent of those emissions can be traced back to beef. Cutting out this single ingredient is a good way to make your cooking more environmental friendly. Even another meat ingredients, like chicken or pork, are three times more efficient to raise. Beans are 20 times more efficient than beef.

Being content with “enough” is a key tenet in stoic philosophy as well.

It is not the man who has too little but the man who craves more that is poor

Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher

It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don’t have. Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed there should not be hunger or thirst

Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher

If you seek tranquility, do less

Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher