salyavin, I hope this is more than a drive by. Your presence here is venerated by all the wise loungers of the Funny Farm Lounge (-:
turq wrote: Salyavin drives by and sez: ... "Ah, but who defines what constitutes a "wise man?"" ________________________________ From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 5:27 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Re: Words of Wisdom... "Ah, but who defines what constitutes a "wise man?"" True enough, I think Epicurus must have been a wise man to come up with such a way of keeping his followers. If you agree that wisdom can be qualified by making life easy for yourself of course. I suppose you could also read it as a snarky way of saying that the only people who think venerating wise people is a blessing are the ones doing the venerating. At least I could.... Thanks to your link I am now venerating tuna on toast with sun dried tomatoes and avocado sprinkled with ground pepper. hmm, hmm --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Salyavin drives by and sez: > > "The veneration of the wise man is a blessing for those > that venerate him" - Epicurus Ah, but who defines what constitutes a "wise man?" If it's the person seeking veneration, I think one is justified in asking, "What's in it for me? What *kind* of 'blessing' am *I* likely to get by venerating you as 'wise?'" More often than not, the "blessing" in question in such situations turns out to be becoming a toady or slave to the supposedly-wise man. In Epicurus' case, he preached a philosophy of peace and freedom from fear, the absence of pain, and living a self- sufficient life surrounded by friends. But he *also* demanded, while preaching self-sufficiency, that his followers/students swear an oath of fealty to him, and only allowed them access to the extremely hierarchical "levels" of his teaching on the basis of such oaths. So where's the "blessing" in this? Seems to me that the person getting the "blessing" is the person being venerated (and obeyed) as if they were the "wise man." Those doing the venerating get...uh...to venerate. Big whoop. So color me not convinced of the "wisdom" of Epicurus' saying about wise men. But he did create a great Web site and iPhone app, however. I use it often to find new recipes: http://www.epicurious.com/ :-)
