Lucretius' "The Nature of Things": post-class thoughts

Peter Paul Reubens - Bust of Pseudo-Seneca - ~1626

Our first Saturday class!

Stephen led the class discussion and summed up some of the highlights of Epicurean  thought:

• We are not part of a great design or "god's plan".  If the gods exist, they don't care about us.
• Stop worrying about death.  There is no afterlife.
• Limit needs and desires.  We do not need much in the way of material belongings.  Set goals that we can realise individually.
• Suffering is not that hard to live with.  Avoid regret and guilt.
• The path to contentment lies in avoiding unpleasantness from other humans. Disengage from political society 
• The key to contentment is freedom from disturbance in the soul and pain in the body.
• Live in the moment.

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I'm having a little trouble negotiating the line between text-based academic discourse and taking the ideas found in ancient texts and applying them to modern dilemmas.  This week I branched out of the text and offered a personal anecdote to support my claim that the complexity of the human mind allows for a level of ongoing dichotomy bordering on acceptable cognitive dissonance, especially when it comes to the practice or adoption of religion, superstitions, and rational thought.

I told the class of a quirk that I have developed over the last few years after the passing of my grandmother. Although I share the Epicurean belief that life, or consciousness, ends at death, if I speak ill of "Nanny", I reflexively raise my eyes to the heavens and apologise to her out loud as if she had heard me and I had hurt her feelings.  When I noticed that I had adopted this practice, I was surprised. I feel no such guilt if I say something about other, living family members outside of there hearing. I do not believe that my grandmother is sitting on a cloud, watching over me in heaven.  Nor do I believe that she is an angel standing over my shoulder.  I honestly believe that she is gone.  However, this does not stop the guilt and subsequent involuntary apology.

The root of the behaviour lies in my own understanding of the afterlife: that loved ones live on in our thoughts and memories.  As such, my grandmother's "spirit" is now carried by me, instead of having the independence it had while associated with her living, corporeal body.  Her 86 years of first-hand experiences and memories may have been lost, but the memories and thoughts that she shared with me, and more importantly, my own experiences and memories of her live on and surround me when I invoke her name, for good or bad.  As such, my apologies are meant for my own ears, as I hurt when anyone, including me, tarnishes the construct of her that I am now responsible for.

As mentioned, I am still struggling to navigate the class discussion and this week I purposely re-directed my analysis off the paper into my own real-life experiences.  I intended to offer my internal-observation as an example of the blurry lines between belief and knowledge, but I am afraid that sharing this rather intimate feeling felt more like a confession in a group therapy session, and it was definitely not a productive use of class time.  I still need to find that broader niche which will allow me to apply the theories studied in the text to a wide audience.