Quote of the Day

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

― Epicurus

What was it about those Greeks that made them so smart? Must have been all the Greek salads. (Groan.) Alls I know is that most of what them there dudes said is still Greek to me. (Ooooh…presently suffering from groin injury due to excessive groaning.)

In light of this, our season of giving thanks, I’ll dedicate today and tomorrow to this sense of gratitude we should all be more aware of on a daily basis. In line with this, I’m also linking one of my favourite YouTube videos, which basically echoes this theme, called “Meaning Of Life Animated.”

For those not familiar with the famed autodidact mentioned above, here’s a brief summary of Epicurus per his Wiki entry:

Epicurus (Greek: Ἐπίκουρος, Epikouros, “upon youth”; Samos, 341 BCE – Athens, 270 BCE; 72 years) was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus’s 300 written works. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by aponia, the absence of pain and fear, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.