A second source of fear is the concern that we may fail to achieve our desires. If these are what Epicurus calls “natural and necessary,” such as wanting food, water, and shelter, then they are limited in scope and relatively easy to obtain. Doing so should not involve excessive trouble.
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They might, of course, be fulfilled in luxurious ways, such as eating expensive food, drinking water from a silver goblet, or living in an elegant home. Epicurus describes these as “natural but non-necessary” desires, and he allows that these preferences may be indulged but always with care, so that they do not bring with them unwanted pains.
Our remaining desires are, according to Epicurus, “due to idle imaginings.”
2 These include the quest for wealth, power, and fame—precisely the goals of the aforementioned Fred. These have no limit; they stretch on “to infinity.”
3 Those who crave them are never satisfied. Seekers of wealth always want more wealth; seekers of power always want more power; seekers of fame always want more fame.
Epicurus warns against these desires because almost invariably the attempts to fulfill them carry unwanted costs. He would anticipate that someone like Fred will eventually fall prey to unhappiness, undone by insatiable appetites. Seeing others who are more wealthy, more powerful, and more famous, Fred will try even harder to outdo them, leading to increased recklessness and ultimate failure.
Casinos, for instance, depend on winners not walking away but continuing to play, seeking to enhance their take. The longer they stay, the greater the odds they will leave as losers.
For one who holds power, relinquishing it is rarely voluntary. Perhaps the most notable exception was George Washington, who could have been president as long as he lived but chose to retire after completing two terms. The significance of his action was well captured by the eminent historian Gordon S. Wood, who wrote: “Washington’s most important act as president was giving up the office. The significance of his retirement from the presidency is easily overlooked today, but his contemporaries knew what it meant…. That the chief executive of a state should willingly relinquish his office was an objective lesson in republicanism at a time when the republican experiment throughout the Atlantic world was very much in doubt.”
4Washington, of course, was a rarity, so Epicurus’s concern about the desire for power remains acute. Those who crave it, by enhancing their efforts to hold on to it, increase the chances that their quest will lead to immorality or illegality. The sizable number of office-holders in the United States who end up in court or prison would come as no surprise to Epicurus.
Those who desire fame, like those who seek riches and power, are driven by an unquenchable urge that some eventually realize is harmful to themselves. This lesson is offered at the end of Plato’s
Republic, a work Epicurus would have known, when Plato tells the myth of Er, the story of a valiant man who died but came back to life two days later and reported what he had seen in the next world. There he found that souls were permitted to select their future lives. The last choice fell to the soul of Odysseus, “whose ambition was so abated by memory of his former labors that he went about for a long time looking for a life of quiet obscurity. When at last he found it lying somewhere rejected by all the rest, he chose it gladly, saying that he would have done the same if his lot had come first.”
5Celebrity is ephemeral. Those seeking to achieve it from favorable media coverage soon learn that what the media gives, it can take away. Similarly, if your aim as a writer is to achieve renown, then you are apt to be disappointed because even in the rare instance in which a specific work is celebrated, the author as an individual personality will almost surely be forgotten. Such is also the fate of those who devote themselves to the success of an organization. Their contributions, however valuable, are not apt to be long remembered.
We reflect on this phenomenon each time we come to the landmark building in midtown Manhattan that is now the home of the City University of New York Graduate Center, founded in 1961. The library is named for mathematician Mina Rees, the school’s first president, whose commitment to the highest academic standards set the tone for the future success of the institution. After serving a decade as its head, she was succeeded by psychologist Harold M. Proshansky, for whom the auditorium is named. His fortitude sustained the school throughout its next two decades, while its existence was threatened repeatedly by cuts in state budgets. Although students regularly use the library and attend events in the auditorium, when they are asked to identify the individuals in whose honor the library and auditorium are named, few know, and not too many care. So much for lasting fame.
Rather than seeking ways to satisfy desires that flow from “idle imaginings,” the aim should be to try to reduce or eliminate them. As Epicurus writes, “If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not give him more money but diminish his desire.”
6But can individuals alter their desires? They can, and the ability to do so is a source of tremendous personal power. The overeater can eat in a healthier manner. The person in poor physical condition can exercise. The individual who is not doing well in school can study more intensely. More pointedly, one who has sought to acquire as much wealth as possible can instead focus on philanthropy, while another who has chased after fame can become dedicated to avoiding the spotlight while still showing concern for others. The self-control required to achieve such results is sometimes referred to as “self-discipline,” felicitously described by John Dewey as “power at command … a power to endure in an intelligently chosen course in face of distraction, confusion, and difficulty.”
7How is such power acquired? The answer, provided in Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics,8 is that repeated acts of self-control result in a self-controlled person who not only performs self-controlled actions but does so from a fixed character. Thus even a single act of self-control can begin the development of a habit of self-control. The most effective approach is not, for example, to resolve to exercise every day for the next year; instead, exercise today, do the same tomorrow, and over time dramatic results may occur.
Possessing the power to change ourselves minimizes the fear of being ruled by appetites. For, as Epicurus observes, “that which is in our control is subject to no master.”
9 In other words, if we can learn to control our desires, then we need not fear their controlling us.
