I'm not happy when I'm smoking weed, but I do feel pleasure, or at least the absence of pain...

Neither race, nor nations as we know them existed back then so this is a faulty comparison m8

thats why i drink honestly

Drinking alcohol makes tooth pain worse. So it still isn't good all the time.

Who cares?

Read Plato.

Dude my dog is a philosopher lmao.

Fuck yeah!

...

I've read it in Greek in high school, but I don't think I have any authority talking about it, for these texts are meant to be read intensively on the span of a lifetime.
Do you have any specific question I might answer?

Well I haven't really got any questions, but I don't have anyone else to talk to about it and I think that it's really amazing that they were able to just reason-out an atomic theory of matter with logic and observation.

Epicurus' epistemology is faulty, him saying that the world is organized atomically is as scientifically worthless as Thales saying that the archè is water. It's not really an achievement, rather it is a coincidence.
Regardless, Epicurus does not offer a solid proof for his intuition, nor our current understanding of matter is solid for us to say that what we believe is scientifically true might not just be an approximation of something that would render Epicurus' statements even more nonsensical. This happens unless you're willing to generalize Epicurus' physical outlook as "things are made of smaller things and there is a smallest thing which may be uniform in nature". This by the way has been a extremely common idea in the history of all philosophies. The train of thought is fairly straightforward: there sheems to be no limit to smallness, and inventions as simple as lens (which were available to ancient Greeks) shows us that our perception of said property is limited. It follows that the constituents of matter are outside of our perception, and for most part of human history, the pnly course of action was imagination. Accorsing to Democritus and Epicurus everything shared its constituents, which differed among them only for their elemental nature and their configurations. The idea of an essential particle stems from the fact that to ancient Greeks any attribute or characteristics of said particle would have meant that what was being described was in fact not essential. This research for the idea that could describe the most basic constituent of reality lead Democritos and Epicurus to the atomic conception. Of course, as you can see, it is entirely based on faulty line of thoughts, and it shows in no istance scientific validity.

I'll add that his take on physics is studied only in a historic context: no philosopher actually takes those ideas seriously. Epicurus is studied for his ethics and his stances on life. You should focus on those, since they can surely be a source of insight.

I'm in the same situation OP. I think you and I both use weed as a crutch against anxiety and depression.

Yeah, trying to get better, but it's slow in coming. Sometimes I just don't want to be hurting for a while.

If you're not happy when you're smoking weed, you're smoking the wrong kind. Let me hook you up. $15/g.

Meet me behind the 7/11 in half an hour.

You need to adress why you feel like shit.

Here's the problem: your only suppressing your problems. Once the high will end you will be again stuck with what bothered in the first place.
If you've got problems to deal in the first place, weed might get you addicted. If this happens, prepare to completely waste entire years of your life.

Seriously, if your life is not in check, don't surrender to drugs, and instead, if it possible (a big if, I'm fully aware that the world is a big place and there surely are lives out there for which these advices are meaningless), try to fix your life.

Trips speak the truth. I'm working on fixing myself, I've made tremendous progress these past year (lost 30kg because I had eating disorders and was a mental wreck in general). Weed actually helped but I feel it's becoming more of a hindrance. So I decided I'd quit on August.

DUDE WEED LMAO

While it certainly isn't a sound argument, I think the Aristotelian model of happiness touches close to what seems to be true. Through self actualizaion, realizing your own potential, the pride of being able to transform yourself, the satisfaction of knowing who and what you are.

I was more referring to when Plato wrote that your dog is a true philosopher because it judged its like or dislike of something based on whether or not it knew it.

I feel like shit because I am trapped in the decaying hell of capitalism which keeps me in a precipitous limbo between complete destitution and perpetual slavery.

Yeah thanks.

Consider psychopaths then, the kind that go and act out their darkest desires. Murders who kidnap, rape, mutilate and kill through several days. They might not feel empathy, but they do feel pain, and these monstrous actions do relieve them of it.

Either of those work for a good Holla Forums thread.

No.

E-Epictetus, why did you lie to me?

Believing in Stoicism is a very nice feeling, having faith that your happiness is entirely within your power. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem true. Which isn't to say that they did not have a lot of good advice and how you think about certain things doesn't decide how it affects you, but I don't think there's any way to think about involuntary solitude, starvation, and slavery that doesn't get to you. It seems like the difference between the ascetics and hermits of the world and regular people who get fucked over, is one makes a choice and the other doesn't.

Epicurianism adresses this elegantly, I've found.

How so?

Friends are highly valued in Epicurian thought. One should refrain from excess and not actively seek pleasure whilst being able to appreciate it when it's appropriate to enjoy some, so that happiness follows true virtue and sensible judgement rather than the other way around.
I'd also recommend getting in touch with Spinoza's ethics and concepts like Dabrowski's Positive Disintegration : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_disintegration#D.C4.85browski.27s_theory

The difference is, only Stoicism offers (if incorrectly) the belief that happiness is a result of internals, things entirely in your control, since no matter what you can always control how you act and think. Whereas in a system like Epicurianism, happiness is dependent, at least partially, on externals.

Spinoza then refined that
notion which is obviously inaccurate. Assuming the world is entirely deterministic, the ony lfreedom there is is to accept and make yours that fact. Happiness is genuinely internal however few men ever get to taste it.

Disregarding the question of free will, my point is that Stoicism promises complete control over happiness if you chose to take that control, while every other system doesn't. It's liberating to think that you can completely control whether you're happy or not, but unfortunately it doesn't really seem true.

Spinozism literally offers the same control over happiness. As I said, I urge you to understand Spinozian Ethics. It will take time and seem impossible at first.

What should I first read?

What is Spinozian Ethics?

Try to find some introduction to Spinoza. Reading the Ethics on your own will be very difficult and most likely a waste of time, it's considered to be one of the hardest philosophy books out there.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_(Spinoza)
Same advice, don't actually start directly with the actual book unless you're very intelligent.

absence of pain is described very well in this book called Brave New World