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Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by onion2k on Thursday April 23, 2015 @05:12AM (#9425576)
This is (yet another) reason to read a little about philosophy. There was a chap called Epicurus who lived in Greece in about 300BC. Around that time the Greeks had city states with a wealthy elite, democracy, and status that arose from owning property. He taught the idea that those things didn't actually make you happy. Essentially he wrote that pleasure comes from avoiding suffering - and a desire to get more material goods leads to jealousy of those who have more which is a root cause of suffering. Epicurus taught that living a simple life with friends, food, exercise and art would make you truly happy.

He also invented epistemology which is pretty cool.

Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by magnifyingglass on Thursday April 23, 2015 @08:26AM (#9426193)
> Epicurus taught that living a simple life with friends, food, exercise and art would make you truly happy

He must have never heard of eating disorders and competition between artists.

Epictetus taught something that is similar to some kinds of buddhism. He was a Greek Stoic philosopher who was born a slave. Suffering is an inevitable part of life, and the best one can do is choose to be free from it in their mind. You either give the suffering power over you, or you separate yourself from it.

People can suffer over anything, but it is callous to assume that they can flip it off easily through the strength of mind, and it is naive to assume everyone has the same root causes of suffering. It is also naive to assume the process of alleviating suffering is the same for everyone in a general sense.

You can't get to your philosophy through the words of others. That is the most I have learned through every philosopher - that they did not choose to think to relieve the pain of others, but to first relieve it for themselves. How can you expect to teach something if you don't know that it works? And that is the problem I have with philosophy. You have to keep believing in it to make it work. This leads to study about the nature and existence of truth.

Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by Delmania on Thursday April 23, 2015 @08:58AM (#9426338)
To notpick, Epicurus was not a stoic, he was a peer to Zeno and taught his own school. Epicurus's approach to suffering was essentially to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by vidarh on Thursday April 23, 2015 @09:19AM (#9426440)
Epictetus was a stoic. Epicurus was not.
Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by saiya-jin on Thursday April 23, 2015 @09:23AM (#9426455)
he didn't write anything about overeating nor competing with artists. For me, message is clear - enjoy good food (quality over quantity), and enjoy arts - even seeing/reading/watching them gives many people including me a pleasant experience (a good step towards happiness)
Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by personlurking on Thursday April 23, 2015 @07:36AM (#9425998)
Here's Alain de Botton in a 24m video on Epicurus and Happiness. In it, he goes over what Epicurus said is needed to attain happiness. The three things are essentially: self-sustainability, time to reflect and friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irornIAQzQY
Re:Relationships Are More Important Than Ambition (2013) by greekgod on Thursday April 23, 2015 @06:13AM (#9425732)
I do like your comment about Epicurus. However I don't know if he invented epistemology as such. He certainly extended it. However, Plato discussed theories of knowledge in some of his dialogues well before this [0].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theaetetus_%28dialogue%29