Desire's Wrath

Don't expect any item or material thing to provide you true happiness or meaning in your life. At the time of writing this poem I was beginning to learn about philosophical thinkers in Ancient Greece in many of my classes in undergrad. This poem was inspired by the Hellenistic thinkers, specifically the Stoics and the Epicureans. These two schools agreed on the notion that the goal of philosophy is to metaphorically transform yourself into the archetype of the Sage. To the thinkers at the time, this meant to be in accordance with your being fully, or in other words to fully actualize your potential. However, after this small agreement, the means by which this was impossibly acquired was different for each school of thought. The Epicureans achieved this unachievable state by trying to remove as much desire as possible for the things which one need not desire. To live life to it's minimal. A life in which one only desires what is necessary for survival can allow one to be truly happy, or in the words of the Epicureans: to rival even the happiness that the God's possess. The Stoics, on the other hand, probably agreed that it is good to remove that which causes us pain. However, they acknowledged the unpredictability of the world around them. Given this (and many other reasons), the stoics did not see a removal of destructive desire and pursuit of simple pleasures as enough to combat that which we have no control over. The Stoics saw the pursuit of moral virtues such as courage, wisdom, and moral fortitude as a means to achieving the impossible perfection of their being. Seneca, an early Stoic philosopher, stated that the main difference between the Stoics and the Epicureans is that the Stoic sage feels his troubles and overcomes them, while the Epicurean sage does not feel them at all.

This poem came after much deliberation on pleasure, happiness, and what it means to me to be happy.