Travels with Epicurus Read Online Free PDF

to be as much a treat for us as for the person to whom we are relating. Tasso does not want anything from his friend the fisherman except his company. He does not want him to tighten up his summary of a case before the court, as he frequently desired a lawyer to do during his days on the bench. Tasso feels no need to manipulate, exploit, or in any way maneuver his fisherman-companion to do anything. No, Tasso simply wants his friend to
be
with him. He wants him to share conversation, laughter, a hand of
prefa
, and, perhaps most important, to share the silence when they both gaze out at the sea. Epicureans consider communal silence a hallmark of true friendship.
    For an old man with the world of “everyday affairs and politics” behind him, this kind of camaraderie is the greatest gift. It is a gift that rarely, if ever, is fully available to the forever youngsters still immersed in their careers.
    â€”
    Companionship was at the top of Epicurus’s list of life’s pleasures. He wrote, “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.”
    It may come as a shock to the well-heeled members of the New England Epicurean Society, an exclusive dining club that favors caviar and oysters at its black-tie dinners, but Epicurus believed that choosing with whom one eats dinner is far more significant than choosing what the menu should be. “Before you eat or drink anything, carefully consider with whom you eat or drink rather than what you eat or drink, because eating without a friend is the life of the lion or the wolf.”
    By the joys of friendship, Epicurus meant a full range of ­human interactions ranging from intimate and often philosophical discussions with his dearest companions—the kind he enjoyed at the long dining table in the Garden—to impromptu exchanges with people, known and unknown, in the street. The education or social status of those with whom he conversed mattered not a whit; in fact the height of true friendship was to be accepted and loved for who one was, not what station in life one had achieved. Loving and being loved affirmed one’s sense of self and conquered feelings of loneliness and alienation. It kept one sane.
    If this prescription for happiness sounds like the drivel of popular songs (in my youth, Nat King Cole’s hit-parade rendition of “Nature Boy” concluded, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”), so be it. It may still happen to be true. The philosopher from Samos was certainly convinced it was true. And there is no doubting friendship’s unique availability in the years when politics and commerce are behind us.
    My lifelong friend and frequent cowriter, Tom Cathcart, and I have always gotten a big kick out of striking up conversations with strangers we meet on trains and planes, in bookstores, on neighboring park benches. Tom has a particular talent for drawing personal stories from these people, and we both love hearing them. But far more valuable to us than the entertainment of the stories is the connection made with another human being. It is a comfort like no other. It is the comfort of personal communion.
    Now that Tom and I are old men and look it—we are both balding, with gray beards—we find that making these impromptu connections happens more easily. It took us a while to figure out why this was so, and when we did, we had a good laugh: old guys are unthreatening. We don’t look like we are up to no good, for the simple reason that we don’t look like we are
capable
of inflicting any no-goodness—well, other than being seriously boring. It was a bittersweet moment when we realized that none of the women with whom we initiated conversations suspected for a minute that we were coming on to them. Heartbreaking to admit, but they were right.
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