It's so easy to become offended. It actually comes pretty natural. Someone says something. You feel it's directed at you Strong reaction follows No need to react, it's got nothing to do with you as a person Imagine some remarks about academic work versus manual one, a bit dismissive about the latter. You don't have a degree and never wanted one. You know very well it takes years of experience and training to do what you're doing. Talent is involved too, as some people do have "two left hands". You still feel you should add something to the conversation, but not sure if it is going to be well-received. No need to enlighten the other party right now Most people think in terms of opposites. If it's not this, it's that and it can't be anything else. Certainty of one's convictions is also a form of self-reassurance that everything is stable in one's world. Other points of view cannot be allowed because they are disruptive. Cognitive disrup...
Fortunately, with such a resurgence of interest in classical antiquity, the often misquoted and misunderstood philosophers of yore got another chance.
The Internet created a repository of writings accessible now to everyone, not just academics and bookworms.
Take the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy for instance, the equivalent of Github and its treasure trove of open source.
The article on Epicurus has a specific reference to friendship. He thought so highly of it that he set up a community of the likely-minded. It was called The Garden.
The Epicurean view on friendship? A blessing, a source of pleasure, a fortress of tranquility, a fountain of trust. A great fortune can never give us what friends do.
Bickering and occasional bitterness, the hallmark of every family relationship, are notably absent among friends.
Then it's respect, not due to seniority, but simply because it is friendship's essential ingredient. It involves no desire to change a friend to suit one's egotistic take on life.
Friendship is in agony when emotional blackmail appears and it dies altogether in that last stage, emotional treason.
When it is fully understood and practised, friendship become a survival mechanism, a protective force, the knight in shining armour. It must be served though and it does not fare well when time apart starts weakening the links.
Epicurus' Garden was an acknowledgement, by the empiricist that he was, that friendships need physical proximity.
The pandemic has taken that away that in the most brutal manner. Online conversations, debates, arguments even, all miss directness.
Has anyone wished they lived now in an Epicurean Garden rather than being part of what is dryly called 'a household'?
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