Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It

Wisdom of the Great Philosophers on How to Live

Daniel Klein

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781786070265
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

A humorous and philosophical trip through life from the Sunday Times bestselling author

NOW UPDATED AND REVISED

“Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it.” The words of Reinhold Niebuhr provide the title and set the tone for what is a wryly humorous look at some of the great philosophical pronouncements on the most important question we can face.

Daniel Klein’s philosophical journey began fifty years ago with just this conundrum; he began an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Harvard University to glean some clue as to what the answer could be. Now in his seventies, Klein looks back at the wise words of the great philosophers and considers how his own life has measured up. Told with the same brilliantly dry sense of humour that made Travels with Epicurus a Sunday Times bestseller, Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It is a pithy, dry, and eminently readable commentary on one of the most profound subjects there is.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

—EPICURUS, GREEK PHILOSOPHER

(341–270 BC), HEDONIST

THIS WAS THE FIRST ENTRY IN MY OLD “PITHIES” NOTEBOOK. Hedonism appealed to me from the moment I discovered that it was a time-honored philosophy and not just a self-centered young man’s daydream. But even back then I must have sensed that I was chronically cautious. I wanted to have as much fun as I could, but I didn’t want to go overboard. Too scary. That is why Epicurus spoke to me: He was a careful hedonist.

Recently, Epicurus seems to be making a comeback with many thoughtful students. There is something appealingly New Agey about him. His aphorisms—discovered in the Vatican Library millennia after his death—read like bumper stickers written by a Zen Buddhist. Epicurus was the Prince of Pith.

In this aphorism, Epicurus is making two related points: First, desiring what we do not have now diminishes or even cancels out our appreciation of what we do have now; and second, when we take a moment to consider the outcome of actually getting that something else that we now desire, we will realize that it is just going to put us back at square one—desiring yet something else. The overall lesson is: Enjoy the present—it’s as good as it gets.

Pondering outcomes is fundamental to Epicurus’s general strategy for living a happy life. Not only should we think through the payoff of always desiring something more than what we have now, we should carefully think through the payoffs of all our desires. Like how do you think you would really feel if you followed your desire to bed your neighbor’s husband or wife? Figure in your guilt and scheduling complications. Still worth it? Epicurus gives teeth to the old adage, “Beware of what you desire, for you may get it.”

This ancient Greek philosopher’s admonition to dump our aspirations if we want to enjoy a happy life resonates with many people today—people who are starting to see the downside of always striving for more, more stuff and more achievements. The major drawback of the striving life Epicurus points out here is that there is always more to desire after a person acquires whatever it is he or she only recently yearned for, which leads to endlessly unsatisfied desire. “My brand-new Maserati sure is great, but what I desperately need now is a tall blonde/gorgeous Romeo to sit in the passenger seat next to me.”

An insidious manner in which we fall into the aspirations trap is in our reverence for perfectionism. We are convinced that this quality is a sign of noble character. We urge our children to be perfectionists. But the outcome of perfectionism is that we are constantly looking for ways in which we or our products could be better. A successful painter I know once told me that when she looks at her work in a gallery, she always focuses on what is missing, what would have made it better. Epicurus is right: That is a guaranteed way never to feel completely fulfilled.

Is Epicurus suggesting that ideally we go through life without any desires at all? Just be happy with what we have and what we are currently doing? Nip all our longings in the bud all the way back to sexual desire and an appetite for meatloaf? Is that the only way to lead the happiest life?

Epicurus definitely thought so and he was that rare philosopher who not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. He chose celibacy for himself because he was convinced that sex inevitably led to unhappy feelings like jealousy and boredom. And although his diet was richer than the Buddha’s one grain of rice per day, Epicurus seemed happy to subsist on bread and water with an occasional lentil thrown in when he was feeling devilish. Like many philosophers, Epicurus was a man of extremes, choosing the perfect symmetry of black-and-white alternatives over nuanced subclauses of options. But unlike many philosophers, he really did practice his purist philosophy in his own life.

My dog, Snookers, is a natural hedonist and one reason for that is that he does not hold a long view of his life. He does not desist from eating a yummy cache of overripe mackerel he finds in our compost heap because it will cause him stomach cramps a few hours later. What’s “later” to Snookers? He simply enjoys each moment without analyzing future outcomes, poor guy. That little doggie does not have a clue how to go about weighing his options, let alone making trade-offs. We humans are far better equipped for that.

Or are we? Modern psychology raises some serious questions about our ability to foresee gratifying outcomes. In his remarkable book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert demonstrates that we humans have a lousy record of predicting what will make us happy, from whom we pair off with to where we live. In most cases, Gilbert says, we would have the same chance of finding happiness by flipping a coin as we do by carefully deliberating our options.

Still, Epicurus’s Zen-like lesson does hit home for me, in fact more now than it did when I first read it. Although generally I do not drift away from the present by desiring more, frequently I do drift away from the present by fantasizing about what’s coming up next. I now realize that I have spent much of my life thinking about “What’s next?” While eating dinner, I will start thinking about what book I am going to read or what movie I am going to watch after dinner. In the meantime, I am not focusing on my lovely mouthful of mashed potatoes.

In fact, “What’s next?” has been the leitmotif of my life. As a child, I constantly thought about what my life would be when I grew up; later, about what life I would lead when I finished university. On and on. Thus have I diluted my life. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “We are always getting ready to live, but never living.”

A fundamental tenet of many of the world’s major religions is that life on Earth is but a trifling stage on the way to Real Life, the life in the eternal hereafter. Our mission here is to prepare for that heavenly life, mostly to make sure we qualify for it. Other than that, our mundane lives do not mean a whole lot. So what we have here is a life of perpetual “What’s next?” Every moment of our earthly lives is focused on the next life.

My personal “What’s next?” compulsion is far less comprehensive, and it definitely lacks the Great Hereafter payoff many religions promise. And without this payoff, my habit makes no sense at all.

But I don’t want to brood about that now: Spending time regretting anything is another sure way of missing what is right in front of me. Furthermore, at my age and with my non-otherworldly worldview, I’m pretty sure I know what’s next.

“The art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass, and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral.”

—ARISTIPPUS, GREEK/LIBYAN PHILOSOPHER

(435–356 BC), HEDONIST

I REMEMBER WHAT I WAS FEELING WHEN I WROTE THIS ONE down: Challenged! Dared! The 1960s were dawning along with their ethos of radical freedom and I felt tested by it. Suddenly, Epicurus’s cautious hedonism felt like a timid man’s bluff. My bluff.

Aristippus was the real deal, an unbridled Hedonist. None of that Epicurean parsing of pleasures. No if/then dithering about the lurking dangers and unwelcome outcomes of acting impulsively. No admonishments to be careful in taking your pleasures lest you hurt or upset someone else. And clearly, no finger wagging in the name of Virtue.

No, this ancient Greek philosopher urges us to get down and dirty. He wants us to be hedonists in the sense that word is used today: pure pleasure seekers. Sensualists! Animals!

Is Aristippus talking about that fancy sports car complete with the hot blonde/gorgeous Romeo in the passenger seat?

You betcha, if that is your “keenest” pleasure.

How about orgies?

Go for it, says Aristippus.

It even appears that the “art of life” could include some passing masochism if one agrees with the original sadomasochist, the Marquis de Sade, who wrote, “It is always by way of pain that one arrives at pleasure.”

Yes, this is definitely starting to feel like a scary dare, yet I cannot help but feel a certain admiration for the purity, so to speak, of Aristippus’s hedonism. He does not hedge on his “pure-pleasure-is-the-only-purpose-of-life” philosophy. He forces me to ask myself if there legitimately can be such a thing as a half-hedonist. And if so, what is the other half? A wuss?

It took courage for Aristippus to break completely with the teachings of his honored mentor, Socrates, who advocated a good and just life over a life of undisciplined frolicking. Apparently it also took some bitchiness on Aristippus’s part—that is, if accounts of his gossipy opus, On the Luxury of the Ancient Greeks, are to be trusted. (Many scholars do not believe Aristippus wrote it.) In that National Enquirer–like history, Aristippus gleefully spills the beans on Plato’s romps with boy lovers. From some perspectives, Plato’s romps may not appear to be the behavior of a good and just Athenian, but, of course, ethical norms have a way of changing over time—just as philosophies of life do.

As a guide to seeking out life’s pleasures, Aristippus flips Epicurus’s basic premise of hedonism upside down. Whereas Epicurus would have us rein in our desires and aspirations so that we can get the most pleasure out of what is right in front of us, Aristippus urges us to actively manipulate what is in front of us in order to maximize our pleasure. Man is the architect of his own pleasure dome.

Judging by Aristippus’s own life, one way he manipulated what was in front of him was by traveling—from his birthplace, Cyrene (in ancient Libya), to Athens to Rhodes and back to Cyrene. In his day, this was equivalent to a world cruise. The way it worked for him seems to have been that when, say, he tired of the view from his terrace in Athens, or of the charms of his favorite Athenian courtesan, the glamorous Lais, he packed his bags.

Another way Aristippus managed to give his immediate environment a makeover was by shopping. Evidently, the man adored luxury. He was an early advocate of the “he-who-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins” school of hedonism. The way Aristippus could afford his self-indulgences was by charging his philosophy students for their tuition, a practice that both Socrates and Plato, early proponents of free access to information, abhorred. Epicurus would have strongly disapproved, too, starting with his precept that striving to achieve absolutely anything, even if it is only toys, is a sure way to miss out on an angst-free life. And for Epicurus, an angst-free life was the only truly happy one.

When I was in my late twenties living on the Greek island of Hydra, I witnessed another anxiety that Aristippus’s anything-goes hedonism can stir up. During that time, I often hung out with another expatriate, Habib, a wealthy Iranian who had been brought up in Paris. Habib was what was known as a fils à papa—a wayward young man who is such an embarrassment to his wealthy father that he is supplied with a tidy sum to just go away. Habib had the time and money, not to mention the good looks, to do pretty much anything he wanted. Furthermore, Habib was not in the least inhibited by conventional norms of acceptable behavior. In short, he had the potential to enjoy Aristippus’s perfect life.

But Habib was overwhelmed by all his options. Why spend the night with Sophia when spending the night with Katrina might be even more sensational? Why smoke some opium when getting drunk on ouzo might be more fun? Or what about both? Time and again, I would find him on the terrace of Loulou’s taverna in a paralyzing dither. Often, I had to suppress a chuckle over his befuddling embarrassment of riches, but for Habib it was no laughing matter. Hedonism made him anxious.

Still, I definitely find something refreshing about Aristippus’s unequivocal, no-nonsense brand of hedonism. Among other things, it is not so cerebral as other philosophers’ brands and for good reason: Aristippus was convinced that intellectual pleasures do not begin to measure up to sensual pleasures.

My dog, Snookers, would agree with Aristippus—that is, if Snookers knew what agreement was. Yet therein lies the reason why I, personally, cannot subscribe to Aristippus’s art of life: I simply am not comfortable seeing myself as an animal with only animal appetites. Don’t get me wrong: I love and admire animals, Snookers in particular, but my human consciousness just cannot be denied. I guess it took Aristippus to force me to admit to myself just how anthropocentric I am.

So, is my resolute humanness the only reason that I have never indulged in an orgy, appealing as that fantasy might be? Or, for that matter, is it the reason I never set out to acquire a closet full of Armani blazers?

I have to admit that, try as I might, I could never completely will away my ingrained anxieties—anxieties very different from Habib’s, but just as inhibiting. For example, I worry that at an orgy I would find it hard to breathe under all those frenetic naked bodies. And then there’s my chronic laziness. Would I really have to get out of bed before dawn to make big-money deals on the Tokyo Stock Exchange? These apprehensions are undoubtedly what really account for my avoidance of orgies and demanding, money-driven labor. Not exactly a philosophical position, but there it is.

“Genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is amb...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prologue
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Chapter 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapter 32
• Chapter 33
• Chapter 34
• Chapter 35
• Chapter 36
• Chapter 37
• Chapter 38
• Chapter 39
• Epilogue
• Postscript
• Glossary of Terms
• Acknowledgments