Bare Essentials

This post is merely a skeletal companion piece to the more fleshed-out summary of Cyrenaic practice found here. It consists only of the essential points to keep in mind as we navigate the world, without excess information.

Bare Essentials:

Our immediate, subjective, sensory affections vouch for themselves, not whatever they appear to represent, and they do so inwardly, unmistakably, truly and incorrigibly. They are our only source of knowledge. The passage and dissolution of fleeting sensations and images is where analysis leaves off.  

Pleasure is self-evidently choice-worthy, pain is self-evidently avoidance-worthy, and no other experiences possess these monadic axiological characteristics. Our ethical project is a life organized around the life-guiding truth of pleasure and pain — the only natural, native, and concrete referents for our understanding of good and evil. 

The highest good is one’s own pleasure, and the end is to live pleasantly, which is happiness. All other goods are instrumental to securing one’s own pleasure. The pursuit of pleasures is balanced with the value of maintaining freedom from mental distress and from bodily pain. Perception of the world is made in terms of opportunities for enjoyment and risks of suffering, informing our hedonic calculus in the economy of pleasure.

The pleasures of the present experience are to be enjoyed fully as our highest goal, without undue concern for what has passed or what is to come, which is self-defeating. Pleasant living is to be accomplished within each individual unit of time, enjoying what is at hand, without excessive toil or yearning for what is not currently available. 

We skilfully cultivate an earthen character, with virile consciousness of the natural and instinctive sentiments of the body and the affections our flesh defines — a poetic apprehension of experience united with something of personal ambition and self-assertion. This opens an aesthetic dimension of pleasure-seeking. We regard all objects — works of art, the fairer forms of nature and human life, engaging personalities — as powers or forces producing pleasurable sensations, each of a more or less peculiar, unique kind. 

We adorn and beautify, in scrupulous self-respect, our souls, and whatever our souls touch upon — these bodies, the raiments we wear, our pastimes, and the intercourse of society. We build ourselves in accordance with a beatific vision of successful living — exemplified by heroic, impassioned, and joyful modes of being and behaving, taken from living or artistically depicted examples. To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. 

To strong sensual passions we must unite a calm regulative intellect, in order to indulge various pleasures without being worsted. We temper our enjoyment with moderation, holding dominion over desires by keeping in mind what really matters and what does not. What really matters is simply to avoid pain and distress, and to experience some sort of pleasure. We achieve the former by disdaining excess. This does not entail embracing austerity, because excess is relative to what is actually good — pleasure. We do not exclude luxury, if available, but avoid becoming attached or dependent on specific sources of pleasure, and reduce our desires accordingly. Temperance also enables enjoyment: those with a sound mind can indulge freely in luxurious pleasures without becoming corrupted — that is, beginning to feel these are necessities.

We keep an easy and yielding disposition, with infinite mirth, adapting ourselves to place, time, and role, performing harmoniously in any circumstance. With confidence, healthy virtue, and elegant vice, we feel comfortable rather than anxious or fearful in unknown or threatening situations. Paradoxically, it is only a person of firm character and profound insight who can be so malleable, adapting comfortably to every situation.

Our easy gaiety and careless enjoyment aids sociability, and we are capable of getting along with any sort of person whatsoever, and can do so without anxiety. This social confidence is based on the understanding both cognitively and emotionally that all we need is to avoid pain and discover some modicum of pleasure, so we feel more relaxed around other people. We do not need to impress anyone, since we are not after anything another can provide which we could not procure for ourselves. Just about every situation presents opportunities for enjoyment, which encourages simple accommodation of ourselves to our company at any given moment.

Suavity involves training responsiveness, versatility, and adroitness. The wise man is comfortable in any situation, and adroit enough to turn it to his advantage. He speaks well, with knowledge and sophistication, possessing charm, humor, and quick-wittedness.