In ancient Greece and Rome at that time, if a person had a headache, a bad headache and a splitting headache, do you know what advice the doctor would give him? They will press this person's head on the bed, then use a drill to get in, and use the drill to make a hole in his head, saying that you should make a hole in your head to leak some air, so that your head will not hurt so much. Many people were killed by this drill, and their lives were gone.
Because people at that time didn't know how to keep in good health, most people were muddling along. Because we don't know how to answer how to be healthy, even exercises can happen.
On the other hand, I want to ask you, do you really know how to be happy? The difficulty of these two questions is the same, because the patient doesn't know the cause. So when we don't know how to be happy, we will choose many wrong ways.
For example, we keep making money, we keep buying cars, we hope that buying a bag may become better, we think a love may become better ... We always hope that these external substances can bring us temporary happiness, but in fact they often bring more pain. For example, if you want to lose weight after overeating, you have to pay back the loan after spending a lot of money on a car. Then you will be miserable, because we have no idea what the reason for happiness is.
So look at this list of happiness given by Epicurus. In fact, he lives a very simple life. Epicurus only drank water, not wine. A meal with bread, vegetables and a handful of olives is enough. His food is very simple, and it is not as strange as the legend. There are only three things on his list of happiness needs:
The first is called friendship. A person should be happy and have friendship. He said: "Of all the things that wisdom can provide to help people live a happy life, friendship far exceeds everything." Before you eat, think carefully about who you want to go with, not what you eat and drink, because without friends, life is like a lion and a wolf. "Epicurus' home is like a big family, but there is no gloomy and closed atmosphere, only sympathy and warmth. Because he thinks friendship is very important. He set up a school to let these people who can talk together live together. Everyone has the same values and pursues simple happiness.
The second is called freedom. The family is surrounded by walls, so there is no need to be ashamed; Gold has nothing to show off. You must be free first. Thoreau, the author of Walden, said that if he only wants to earn enough calories for one year-because people live for calories, you only need to earn enough calories-six weeks is enough. I have worked for six weeks and earned enough calories this year. The rest of the time, I sat by the lake reading, walking, playing, listening to birds and observing nature. This is the real freedom.
Today, however, we spend a lot of time trying to earn more money, but we lose a lot of freedom. So for Epicurus, the second item is freedom.
The third is called thought. That is, if you only have simple thoughts without deep pursuit, you can't read more books and understand nature more thoroughly, then your freedom and friendship are superficial, so you should think deeply.
Epicurus was particularly concerned about analyzing their anxiety caused by money, illness, death and ghosts and gods with his friends. His theory is that if we can think rationally about the limited life, we will realize that when people die, things will be forgotten, and we will return to nothing without worrying about death. Epicurus conquered death with profound thoughts. For those who really know that there is nothing to be afraid of without life, life is nothing to be afraid of.
So Epicurus once made a particularly unreasonable argument. He said: "I was alive before death came, so I don't have to be afraid of death;" I died after death came, and I don't have to be afraid of it, so I'm not afraid of death. "Whether this kind of death will come or not, I should always live; Death, I'm dead anyway, so I won't always be with death. This is Epicurus' theory.
He believes that everyone has desires, some of which are innate and necessary, some of which are innate but unnecessary, and some of which are neither innate nor necessary. What is natural and what is necessary? For example, friends, freedom, thoughts, food, shelter from the wind and rain, clothes, you see, these things are all natural and necessary, and we all have to have them.
Naturally, but not necessarily? Too big a house is unnecessary. Although it is natural, it is not necessary. Then you need a private bathroom, you need to feast every meal, eat good food, you need servants, you need to eat fish and meat. This is natural, but it is not necessary.
Then there are some unnatural and unnecessary things, such as fame and power. That is, you really want to be famous and have millions of fans. Things like this are wishful thinking, because it can't bring you happiness, but it will add a lot of burden to you.
Epicurus said that after eliminating the pain of lack, the fun of light tea and light rice is the same as a rich banquet.
For example, when your monthly income is below 1 10,000 yuan, you will be much happier if you increase 1000 yuan. Wow, happy. But when your monthly income reaches, for example, 50,000,100000,100000, it feels almost the same. Because no matter how rich you are, you just walk, live, sit and lie down. We have to eat, worry, communicate with people and solve many problems every day, so people don't have to pursue excessive material enjoyment.
Therefore, if you really understand Epicurus' hedonism, you will find that he is actually comforting us and letting us know that we can live well without that much money.
Since everyone can understand what Epicurus said, why are people in this society still desperately pursuing more things? Everyone is desperately pursuing more things. Why? The answer given by Epicurus is awesome.
Epicurus' point of view is that because people's needs are unknown to us, expensive things seem to be the appropriate solution. That is, we can't understand what we really want, and you will think that things that look expensive and no one else has are probably a solution.
When we want freedom in our hearts, we don't know what freedom is. Off-road vehicles seem to be free, right? We thought that SUV represented freedom, so we bought an expensive SUV, thinking that we bought freedom. When we want to get friendship, we don't know what friendship is, but we see an expensive bottle of wine. We think this expensive bottle of wine may bring me friendship, right? So you buy expensive wine.
So the meaning behind this sentence is that we need friendship, freedom and love for the needs we don't understand, but we don't know how to get them. At this time, expensive things seem to be the appropriate solution. I think this sentence is particularly amazing, that is, let us really understand the comfort that Epicurus brought us: the comfort of lack of money.
So after listening to Epicurus' story, do you feel a little calmer? Eat some olives and some bread, and you can actually live a good life.