Happy Twentieth to everyone and Happy 2022! The essay Victor Frankl and the Search for Meaning is a review of the best-selling book on logo-therapy and the therapeutic benefits of making meaning, written from an Epicurean perspective. Please enjoy our past Eikas essays, which have all been compiled here.

The essay Utility and Affection in Epicurean Friendship is in academia.edu.

“Practice these and similar things day and night, by yourself and with a like-minded Friend, and you will never be disturbed whether waking or sleeping, and you will live as a god among men: for a man who lives in the midst of immortal goods is unlike a mere mortal man.” – Epicurus, to Menoeceus

You may remember that the Letter to Menoeceus has a “meleta portion” with instructions on how to practice philosophy “by ourselves and with others of like mind“. Here, Epicurus uses the term “μελέτα πρὸς σεαυτὸν ” (meléta prós seautón) to speak of the practice of philosophy by oneself (se-auton). 

We have touched on this, but not delved too much in depth into what it consists of, except to observe that it must involve a balance of both self-nurturing and self-discipline. Without self-nurturing, one risks engaging in ascetic self-abuse in the name of philosophy. Without self-discipline, one risks being too soft and fearful, and remaining unprepared for the occasional harshness of life.

According to the essay Ascetic self-cultivation, Foucault and the hermeneutics of the self, by Michael A. Peters:

“the word epimeleia is related to melete, which means both exercise and meditation”

Epicurus’ meléta prós seautón reminds us of epimeleia heautou–the Greek term for self care. In fact, the terms share semantic roots, and half of the meleta we are supposed to do (meleta by ourselves) could be characterized as self-care, or epimeleia heautou. If we search for epimeleia heautou or for self-care online, however, we will be taken in many unwanted directions. Many products are being sold in the name of self-care, and philosophers like Michelle Foucault and Pierre Hadot have influenced how people understand the term today. This can be useful, but within the Society of Epicurus we’re specifically interested in the Epicurean sense of self-care.

Let us unpack the twin notions of meléta prós seautón and epimeleia heautou into bits and pieces, so that it’s easier to appreciate why self-care is important.

• It is impossible to take care of oneself if we do not have time for leisure, time to think and practice philosophy, time for introspection. So this practice of self-care must therefore be a feature of a certain civilized, self-cultivated quality of life that affords time for leisure.
• A lifestyle of “self-care”–to whatever extent it is implemented–seems distant from the lifestyle that the polis / state requires of citizens, which involves preparing for warfare or for civil administration. It’s a private lifestyle that makes us look within and centers on intimate concerns. It therefore dignifies the individual.
• Self-care requires that we assume, first, a degree of causal responsibility for our own happiness, dispositions, habits, and our choices and avoidances. It must therefore be a feature of moral maturity.
• Again, in order to avoid the excesses of self-indulgence or self-abuse, it seems fair to say that self-care must include a balance of self-nurturing and self-discipline–which may at times require a willingness to rationally renegotiate and shift our emotional investment into greater degrees of self-love or self-reproach, as needed. This reminds us of Nietzsche’s declaration:

He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one can command himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience! – Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

Self-rule (autarchy) requires self-obedience: we do not truly rule ourselves if we do not obey ourselves also. Therefore, some of our ongoing projects of self-care must relate to autarchy (self-governance, or the art, science, and virtue of self-sufficiency). 

• In the second field of praxis (meleta “with others of like mind”), we rely on the efforts, wisdom, and example of others, who may also plant seeds in us and become the causes of our happiness, a benefit which we reciprocate. This field includes friendly conversation, the celebration of Eikas, the evaluation of case studies through the framework of philosophy, etc. But in the first field of praxis (meleta by ourselves), we rely on our own effort and we become the cause of our own happiness.
• Self-care includes all the practices related to moral development (re-habituation, or turning away from vices and towards virtues), study (including the study of the self), memorization, repetition, carrying out our choices and avoidances with the help of the Doctrines, and any other practices of self-cultivation, contemplation, “placing before the eyes” (Epicurean visualization), or meditation that we find to be advantageous for our happiness.

There are many more techniques (like journaling) that could be incorporated into self-care, as well as circumstances (like the pandemic) that pose particular challenges. In the end, it’s up to each individual philosopher to adopt into her hedonic regimen whatever methods work for them. I hope that these initial deliberations help our readers to carefully consider and plan their own process of meléta prós seautón.

Further Reading:

Epicurean ethics as an example of morality as self-care