“I want”, “I want”, “I want”
I decided to run an experiment.
My research question was to figure out how many times I hear the word “I want” in a day from other people and myself. My hypothesis, roughly 10 times. My conclusion, 47 times.
During this day of my experiment, I went to school for 7 hours, talked to teachers and students, came home and talked to my family and had 2 calls during the evening.
Here were some trends:
I want the day to end.
I want to go to sleep.
I want a 99% final.
I want exam season to end.
I want some “good” food.
Commonly after these phrases, I heard “thats all I need” or “I’ll be so happy, I just want…”
The reason behind this experiment was because I had heard Epicurus’s four part cure to happiness, one of which was being aware and understanding that us humans overcomplicate what we to please the mind and body.
And I in fact am guilty.
During the day I wanted to go to sleep. I wanted my biology lesson to end quickly so I could start on the homework. I wanted to hurry on home to get to my work. I wanted to take a break to go on my phone.
I thought each of these actions would please both my mind and my body. When in reality, I don’t actually need any of these to feel pleased.
Prior to the experiment, I didn’t care to figure out why. But Epicureanism’s four part cure to happiness lays it out nicely, its called The Tetrapharmakos.
The Tetrapharmakos has four parts to it, each explaining the happiness in simplicity and what we currently have.
God is nothing to fear
Death is nothing to worry about
It is easy to acquire the good things in life
It is easy to endure the terrible things
This article will break each of these down with a focus on the third and fourth parts.
God is nothing to fear.
Epicurus says that if we consider God to be invulnerable and a happy living thing, then God must be completely unbothered and unworried by human affairs. Therefore, we shouldn’t represent god as this punishment on human begins.
So overall, we shouldn’t base our punishments and fear on the fact that God will be angry. But rather, consider our own opinions of ourselves.
Death is nothing to be worried about
This goes back to the first part in which Epicurus states that there is no need to think that god will punish you after death.
Natural science says that when our body breaks down, the living thing doesn’t exist. There’s no soul which can be tormented or rewarded in afterlife. So, it cannot affect you when you’re living because you’re not dead yet and can’t affect you when you’re dead because then you don’t live anymore.
It’s comforting to realize that everything in life is limited and beyond a certain point, all striving and suffering basically ends.
The best way to set this up, the letter says “death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.”
But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life.
The good things in life are easy to acquire.
When we consider things we want, it’s comforting to realize that our true needs are limited and fairly easily available from nature understanding that the things that are difficult to achieve, we just don’t need.
This goes back to my thought experiment I conducted last week. We don’t need a lot of things. We want things and believe if we attain these things then we will gain pure happiness, when in reality to achieve happiness, the needs are very limited.
We don’t only have to focus on survival but can focus on a deeper appreciation of the universe which seeks to understand the nature of things and be amazed by beauty. Overall being amazed by simplicity.
Instead of wanting to go home to go on your phone, enjoy the moment of learning and later when you come home you can enjoy going on your phone. This makes us invulnerable as we do not fear nature, but instead take delight in it.
As humans we’re always looking for the next thing because there’s no reaching 100% in life. You can always go a step further and in reality, Epicurus says that the presence of things like fame and political power causes more unhappiness than happiness.
I realized this in my life this past winter break. The first week was purely spent on relaxing and I would squeeze as much work into my free time as I possibly could but family events took majority of my days. However, I was purely happy.
We would watch a movie together as a family or would just stay up until 2am talking to my mom while eating snacks, this was pure happiness. These moments highlighted how the ease of living comes with understanding how little we actually need.
According to Epicurus, all of our pleasures boil down to two kinds. Both are good but naturally limited, therefore, we must curate them.
- Kinetic pleasure: pleasant, agreeable and sweet.
- Static pressure: tranquil (calm), sell-sufficient and self-assured.
Most kinetic needs are fulfilled by natural things But once these desires and needs are fulfilled, you enter the stable state of static pressure. At this point you can’t increase pleasure anymore, but can vary it.
For example, let’s say you eat a sandwich when you’re hungry. You fulfill the kinetic pleasure of hunger. At this point in time you’re no longer hungry but can eat more. After the sandwich, you can eat a gourmet dessert to further fill your stomach but your pleasure of hunger or eating something that’s junk food will only vary.
So in reality, you can find happiness in the simplicity of life and can acquire all things you need.
The terrible things in life are easy to endure
The final part of Epicurus’s happiness cure is that acute pain is short, chronic pain is long and dull and if the pain is too intense for too long, then you can always end your life, then no harm can come to you.
Overall, the key is that we worry about the things that may hurt us and we create our own artificial pain. But, if we stop seeing everything as terrible and create an artificial problem and only cope with the problems that the world throws at us is far easier to handle.
And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure.
This highlights the fact that some pains are worth dealing with in the short run because they’ll act as a greater source of pleasure in the long run.
Short term pains like losing sleep to hit a deadline or catch up on work will actually be worth it in the long run.
Epicurus loads of experimenting done with this four part cure, but embracing simplicity can provide pleasure.
Just think about it.
