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apricot grove will make me late for dinner, but wouldn’t it better reflect my true values if I simply enjoyed to the fullest this surprising little respite?”
    This, in the end, is the prime purpose of a philosophy: to give us lucid ways to think about the world and how to live in it. That is what I am up to, sitting here with my book on Epicurean philosophy in front of me: deliberating about my options for a good old age. There is nothing I can do about my DNA, but perhaps Epicurus and other philosophers can help me sort out the choices I need to make.
    ON CHOOSING AN EPICUREAN LIFE IN OLD AGE
    Opting for Epicurean freedom in old age makes terrific sense to me. The timing is perfect because this kind of freedom is available to many of us past the age of sixty-five without our having to pitch a lean-to in the woods or take up residence in a commune—although, come to think of it, living on a commune as an old man might be just the ticket. In any event, Epicurean freedom in old age might be an excellent choice for people debating the “forever young” option; by and large we are people with retirement resources, even if those funds may be insufficient for gourmet meals or even, possibly, for the homes in which we have lived during our productive years. Epicurus would have us scale down and taste the sweetness of this freedom.
    Freed from “the prison of everyday affairs and politics,” an old man needs only to answer to himself. He does not need to stick to a strict schedule or compromise his whims to sustain his life. He can, for example, sit for hours on end in the company of his friends, occasionally pausing to sniff the fragrance of a sprig of wild lavender.
    ON THE PLEASURES OF COMPANIONSHIP IN OLD AGE
    Perhaps without fully realizing it, a good portion of the pleasure Tasso finds at his table at Dimitri’s is that he is enjoying his companions
without wanting anything from them.
His tablemates are a retired fisherman, a retired teacher, and a retired waiter—all born and raised on the island—while Tasso is a former Athenian judge, who as a young man studied law in Thessaloníki and London. But this has little, if any, bearing on his relationship with his three friends.
    Wanting nothing from one’s friends is fundamentally dif­ferent from the orientation of a person who is still immersed in professional life and its relationships. An individual in commerce, whatever that commerce may be, is in service of a goal that has little or nothing to do with genuine friendship. A boss gives instructions because she wants results, and an employee follows her instructions for the same reason, one of those desired results being his paycheck. No matter how many management manuals propose treating employees and colleagues as genuine individuals, the underlying fact remains that a commercial situation is always inherently political. On the job, our colleagues are first and foremost means to an end, and so are we. So it always was. Epicurus understood this when he cautioned us about the perils of commerce and politics.
    In Kantian ethics, we are specifically advised never to treat another human being as a means but always as an end in himself. In his monumental
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of ­Morals
, Immanuel Kant concluded that an abstract and absolute principle for all ethical behavior was required as the touchstone for all particular moral choices. The principle he deduced was his Golden Rule–like supreme categorical imperative: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” Thus Kant believed that in following this imperative no man would choose to treat another man as a means to an end; he could not rationally will that such behavior become universal law, in large part because then he too would be treated as a means by others.
    Treating someone as an end rather than as a means turns out