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The Philosophy of Epicureanism · Think Twice Show

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  Epicurus he advocated for friendships over romantic
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  relationship because of the turmoil that we all know that
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  comes with romantic relationships.
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  Even as friends you have to have turmoil friendships.
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  It's not about achieving tranquilly.
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  Where would you rank friendships in comparison to romantic
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  relationships and familial connection?
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  The familial connection has to be #1 it actually encompasses
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  the other two. Focusing solely on personal
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  peace is selfish. I agree.
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  The actual framework is an individual framework of
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  thinking. I think I'm joining the commune,
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  you know? I had a feeling you'd be there.
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  Welcome to think twice. My name is Benz.
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  My name is Sam Teff. And thank you for joining us.
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  Thank you for lending us your ear, your eyes for the day and
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  joining us. However you're listening or
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  watching, we appreciate you. Today we're going to discuss the
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  new philosophy to us, really something that I really enjoy
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  from this show is essentially like through my day job, I play
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  sport for a living. And when you when you get into
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  the working world, what you stop doing is learning.
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  And this show just allows us to learn, which is just great.
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  I think self improvement is just like so important because it
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  essentially distracts me from my advances.
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  That makes me the reason why why I spent time studying philosophy
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  and then try and tell you guys and learn what I can in the in
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  the meantime. And today we're discussing
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  Epicureanism, which has been bastardised a little bit where
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  people think it's similar to hedonism because the main detail
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  or the main focus around Epicureanism is pursuing
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  pleasure. But the important difference
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  between Epicureanism and Hedonism is the fact that the
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  pleasure is of the mind and not of the senses.
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  Yeah, exactly. The the actual pleasures, you
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  know, exalted in Epicureanism versus those in Hedonism,
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  they're slightly different. And the way you actually achieve
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  pleasure is a bit more reserved in Epicureanism.
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  It's a bit more measured and balanced and, and a big part of
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  Epicureanism is having a simple, balanced, rational outlook on
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  life. And I think that definitely is
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  different from what we understand hedonism to be and
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  what everyone else understands hedonism to be.
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  That word has association with like, you know, excess, you
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  know, glutton greed with too much of everything.
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  I guess in a sense Epicureanism has a hedonistic framework for
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  morality, but in that, like you said, what is good is what is
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  pleasurable, and that is in a sense a hedonistic framework.
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  So I think the similarities make a lot of sense.
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  But Epicureanism came from someone called Epicurus.
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  It's like a ancient philosopher, a Greek philosopher.
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  His focus was on how do we make humans happy?
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  What is the way to live a good life, exactly.
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  And he basically split it into three different categories.
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  So we've got natural and necessary, natural and
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  unnecessary and unnatural and unnecessary.
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  Their desires. Their desires right and the way
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  you should live is to work with things that are natural and
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  necessary so that would come under like food, shelter and
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  friends and. Satisfy those natural desires.
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  Exactly. And that's the way to be happy.
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  And the second category, natural and unnecessary, he says.
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  Be cautious of these things. They pose a risk to your actual
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  pleasure, which is luxury and nice clothes and and things like
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  sex. And what we shouldn't, what we
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  should avoid at all costs is unnatural and unnecessary
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  things, which would be power, wealth and fame.
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  And that's because they have no natural limit and they will lead
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  to pain and fear in the long run.
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  That's essentially like a short sort of way of summarising
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  Epicureanism. We'll go into further detail as
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  the episode goes on, but one last point is we might touch on
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  this in the episode that he basically discusses two types of
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  pleasures, static pleasure and active pleasure.
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  And the idea is that active pleasure would be something
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  along the lines of eating a nice meal that would be an active
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  pleasure. The static pleasure would be
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  enjoy the contentment afterwards.
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  And what Epicurus was basically advocating for was we should try
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  and strive for more static pleasure as much as possible.
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  So that contentment is where you should try and live and not try
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  and live with the active pleasures too much.
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  Yeah, exactly. And, and, and to continue your
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  analogy of the food, it's like the moment you eat a meal and
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  you're satisfied with that meal, you have satisfied a static
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  pleasure. And at the point at which you're
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  full, you have static pleasure. Any dessert you might have after
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  the fact that doesn't fill you up, it just sort of gives you
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  sensory pleasure. Is this act of pleasure that for
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  Epicurious doesn't actually increase one's pleasure?
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  Yeah, exactly. It just creates motion within
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  your pleasure and it varies your pleasure.
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  And it's actually one of the, the few things that like in his
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  philosophy that made him disagree with a lot of his
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  contemporaries, because his contemporary saw pleasure as a
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  sliding scale. It goes up or it goes down,
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  whereas he saw it as something that was a bit more varied.
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  The point at which you're full, you have X amount of pleasure
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  reaches the top. And then you, you like shift
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  this left and right and like, you start to like get this
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  imbalance and like instability in your pleasure, which I
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  thought was a kind of a novel thing.
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  I don't know if it makes sense to me, but it's a nice way to
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  contextualise what pleasure is. And now on to the first
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  question. Because Epicurus valued
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  friendship so much, what the first question should be is
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  friendship the highest level of connection you can have?
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  Like you say, for Epicurious it was friendship is the highest
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  level of of connection you can have.
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  And the reason he thought that was he felt like friendships are
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  the perfect way to relate to one another in a way that you get to
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  choose who your friends are. You might not be able to do that
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  with family right? And you also, as long as the
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  friendship is based on mutual respect like care and community,
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  you get to shield yourself from the fears of life.
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  So a big part of Epicureanism is trying to dispel the fears of
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  life, IE the fear of death, the fear of pain from the gods.
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  The gods like the gods wrath coming down on you when you sin.
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  And he felt like the anxieties of life could be shielded with a
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  group of friends. And it makes a lot of sense to
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  me. But the one thing that I think
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  Epicurus misses in that is that a lot of the other types of
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  relationships we have. So romantic relationships,
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  familiar relationships, these are friendships if we think
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  about them, right? If you have a relationship with
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  someone that's based on mutual respect, love, and the desire to
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  nurture one another, that's a friendship, right?
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  If you have a romantic relationship with a partner,
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  you're friends first. There's romance, I think, I
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  think, I think you're twisting it a little.
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  Bit how am I twisting it I. Think you're twisting it a
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  little bit, so I'll be curious, he he advocated.
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  For. Friendships over romantic
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  relationships. He was, he was celibate, but the
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  reason why he advocated for it was because of the turmoil that
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  we all know. We all know that comes with
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  romantic relationships. And if you want peace and
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  pleasure, he's essentially saying you can't find it there.
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  You're more likely to find it with friends.
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  Right. And like you say, you're
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  absolutely right. This, this idea of mental
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  tranquilly is like the perfect state of, of, of mental clarity.
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  You have no mental anguish. All your anxieties are gone.
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  And at that point you've achieved happiness, right?
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  I don't think that you should be trying to achieve that in your
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  relationships. Think about a relationship that
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  has no turmoil. Is that even a relationship
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  worth having between two people who love each other and are
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  trying to create a bond? Even as friends you have, you
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  have to have turmoil. There has to be a level of back
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  and forth where you find out your boundaries, you find out
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  about that person, what they like, what they don't like, and
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  vice versa. And the process of bonding is
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  one that is tumultuous. Do you get what I'm saying?
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  So for Epicurious to focus on friendships and say friendships
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  have this thing that romantic relationships don't, IE this
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  tranquilly that romantic relationships don't to me is
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  misguided because. There's Epicurious made the
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  point that, like, we know this to be true, that romantic
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  relationships have sort of a possessive quality that
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  friendships don't have. So like, even though you may
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  have like tumultuous episode with a friend, you don't have
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  that persuasive quality that you have in romantic relationships
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  and therefore the likelihood of misery is less.
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  But my question to you is, is that act of possession, which by
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  the way can happen in friendships, is that is that?
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  More likely in romantic relationships it is.
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  That's fair, right? Yeah, that's fair, That's fair.
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  But my my question to you is, is that a feature of romantic
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  relationships or is that just romantic relationships gone
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  wrong? Because anything can go wrong,
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  right? Yeah.
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  Is that romantic relationships gone wrong or is that just the
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  way romantic relationships are? Because what I want us to do
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  here is to compare an ideal romantic relationship versus an
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  ideal friendship, right? Because that's what Epicurus did
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  He. And I don't know if he did that
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  to be true. I feel like you were leading me
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  down a little. Rd and.
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  I didn't. I didn't.
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  I didn't go OK, OK, OK. OK, I, I, I admit I, I've been
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  caught in that act. I was.
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  Going to say yeah. Yeah, yeah, I.
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  Did you know what you said? Yeah.
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  You're trying to rewind back and it's like this.
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  And that was making it wasn't about to happen there.
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  You know, it wasn't mad. I know that was a barefaced lie
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  because he actually didn't do that.
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  What, what I actually think Epicurious did was he looked at
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  the relationships around him and in context of ancient Greece,
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  there is that possession, there is a bit of like especially
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  between man and woman. The man sort of owns the woman.
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  So, and, and part of that is to do the institution of well, to
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  be fair, I don't know whether they had marriage in the
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  traditional sense back in ancient, ancient Greece, but you
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  know how marriage. Was a patriarchy.
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  Exactly. It was a patriarchy, and women
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  obviously played a certain role that was oppressive.
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  So I do see that in the context of the relationships that
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  Epicurus saw, that was definitely a thing.
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  But I'm saying like romantic relationships in and of
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  themselves outside of the context of the patriarchy.
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  And that might be difficult to imagine because we don't know
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  that. But to me, I think in romance,
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  you are friends first. There isn't some part of
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  friendship that isn't also part of romantic relationships.
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  I think the two are intertwined. I would agree with that to an
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  extent. Yeah, but I, I.
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  Do think like maybe not with you or maybe not with me.
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  There is often a possessive quality that people have in
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  their relationships. Essentially because like you, I
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  can only have one of you. So like say I have a girlfriend
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  or wife or husband, I can only have one of them.
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  You know what I mean? Like whilst like I can have
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  multiple friends. So it is a different dynamic and
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  we we can't, we can accept that. Yes, you can be friends with
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  your wife, girlfriend or husband, but you can't separate
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  the idea that you can only have one of them.
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  That's fair. That's fair.
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  And I actually do concede that because now that I'm thinking
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  about it now, like I don't know whether trying to extract
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  romantic relationships from the context that we know them to
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  exist in. I'm I'm thinking to myself like,
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  is that even a worthwhile exercise to do that?
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  But I guess when, when I'm trying to think of a moral
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  philosophy, I do do that thing where I'm like, I, I tried to
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  remove the context and make the philosophy make sense in a
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  timeless way. And then and then re add the
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  context and then. Add the context after the fact
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  that I guess that's the exercise that I tried to do in my own
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  mind. But you're absolutely right.
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  Like in a monogamous relationship, you can only have
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  one partner. And yeah, you're right, that
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  doesn't create possession. And, and you have to bear in
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  mind that like, that's what he said, I'm not saying it's the
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  right thing, but that is a fair argument.
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  Do you know what I mean? And it's, and now we have like
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  essentially 3 different type of connections.
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  You can really have like a friendship connection, a
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  romantic connection, and. Familial.
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  Familial connection, right. And when you have those three,
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  it's kind of they, they do have different pros and cons.
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  Yeah. As a result, like the fact that
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  you can have multiple friends means you're not as special to
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  one other person, which you can have in that romantic
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  relationship. Agreed.
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  And what you have with your familial connections is
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  essentially you have such a shared history, which you don't
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  have with the other two. Like you, you were born, your
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  brother saw you when you were two.
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  You might not have that with the others.
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  Yeah. And in that same sense, it's
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  it's and you have a loyalty and the fact that this person is my
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  brother and that can't change whether you're relationship
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  strays or whatever, that can't change.
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  Whilst a friend can not be a friend at some point.
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  Similarly with a romantic relationship.
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  So I think there are strengths and weaknesses to each.
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  And I was wondering which one do you think is the strongest?
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  Yeah, Like which one do you value the most?
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  Like. I guess I see friendship, like I
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  said, as a subset and like I wouldn't say that my romantic
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  partners are not my friends like I would I would see and I also
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  see my siblings as my friends. You know what I mean?
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  I live in community with them. There's nothing that I don't do
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  with my friends that wouldn't do my siblings.
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  I guess the the the way I look. At the question, does your mum
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  and your pops as well? That's like in the familial
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  connection. Do you know what I mean?
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  I don't know if that's that makes it a little bit different,
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  but I thought and like, yeah, do you know what I mean?
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  I think that is involved in that as well.
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  That's not it's not just your siblings.
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  I guess, I guess the the answer to the question is not
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  necessarily the answer to the question is like a relationship
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  that I feel has a mutual desire between two people to nurture
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  each other so emotionally and spiritually, whether that's my
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  parents, my peers, my romantic partners, that that's the
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  essence of the highest form of human connection that right
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  there. You you don't.
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  Basically, it's not defined by those parameters around those
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  connections. Yeah, I wouldn't say this one is
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  above the the the others and that's where I disagree with
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  Epicurus. That's really it.
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  Where would you rank friendships in comparison to romantic
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  relationships and familial connections?
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  I'd probably say like the familial connection has to be #1
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  OK. And the reason why I sort of
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  think the familial question has to be #1 is more because it, it
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  actually encompasses the other two.
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  And the familial connection has something that you can't really
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  capture in the other two. So that's why I would generally
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  lean towards the familial connection because the the idea
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  of the romantic connection or what's special about it is that
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  like you're 1 to someone else's one.
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  But I'm still that one to my brother's one and to my mum's
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  one and my dad's one. And similarly with what you said
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  is there's not something I wouldn't do with my friends,
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  that I wouldn't do with my siblings and, and that's the
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  same for me. So it's sort of like those two
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  things take place in a familial connection.
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  That's fair. That's fair, I think.
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  And you also, do you mention shared history.
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  You know, you might have shared history.
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  I mean, you by definition, you've got more shared history
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  with your siblings than you do with any of your friends.
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  But actually, one thing that Epicurus said that would put
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  friendships over familiar relationships was the fact that
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  you get to choose. Do you know what I mean?
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  And I think especially in those times, families were actually a
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  place of oppression. They were a place where, you
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  know, one generation is coerced in another to do certain things
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  and conform, conform to certain values and traditions.
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  How do you feel about that for your own personal life?
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  Like the fact that you get to choose your friends, doesn't
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  that give it an extra sense of doesn't that make it special?
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  See, I see it the, I kind of see it the other way.
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  I kind of see the idea that you don't choose your family and you
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  kind of have to love these people.
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  And I think there's something special about that.
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  Like in a weird, in a weird way that we've just been put on the
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  earth together, like, and our relationship has to grow as a
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  result of that. Like, and I find that quite
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  serendipitously. Do you know what I mean?
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  Like I like the idea of that. Whilst friends is, yeah, I do
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  like the idea that you get to choose as well.
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  And if I had one or the other, I'd probably prefer to choose.
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  Like that would probably be the nice thing.
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  But I think there is a niceness about the fact you don't get to
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  choose your family and when you do like them as well, that now
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  is amazing. You know what I mean?
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  You didn't get to choose these people and you love these
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  people. That's brilliant.
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  Like, do you know what I mean? I think that is, yeah.
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  Serendipitous. Yeah.
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  And I think, I think the to your point, when you don't get to
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  choose, you have duty, You are sort of imbued with this duty to
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  love, care and and nurture your siblings whether you actually
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  like them or not. Yeah, exactly.
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  And you'll learn to like them like when on Amazon, you'll
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  learn to like them like. Yeah, I guess, I guess I would,
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  I would say that the fact that you can choose is a really big
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  thing because you get to pick the relationships that nurture
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  you and you can nurture the other person.
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  And like you get there's there's billions of people on this
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  planet that you could do that with, maybe not in actuality,
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  but like the fact that that person is picked out of the
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  masters is beautiful to me in the same way for romantic
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  relationships. Do you know what I mean?
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  You're sort of bound by blood to your siblings, whether you like
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  it or not. You've got 20 years and it's
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  like. You're not your brother.
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  Yeah, but it's not you don't have a relationship.
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  Yeah, you know what I mean? And that's like it feels like
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  forced and coerced element of it.
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  I wouldn't, I wouldn't enjoy, like, I don't enjoy that,
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  obviously. It just so happens that like, I
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  love my siblings and they're the greatest thing to me.
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  But there's, there's something that like the idea that it's
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  fate, that that's your brother. Do you know what I mean?
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  Like I I like the idea. Like, so when when you do face
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  sort of like any troubles or adversity, this person is put on
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  here like, and that's your brother.
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  Like that's your do you know what I mean?
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  When everything else disappears, your brother's still your
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  brother. Yeah, I think that's quite nice.
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  Moving on to Question 2, can focusing on personal peace make
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  us selfish? Epicureanism is focused heavily
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  on not participating in politics.
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  Epicurious thought that participating in politics would
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  make you unhappy and I tend to agree.
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  He also focused on simple living and self-discipline.
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  And if you hear all those things that he talks about, it's often
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  in relation to self. And as a result, the the
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  personal peace is to equal pleasure.
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  And I do think focusing solely on personal peace, like as the
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  main goal to equal pleasure, is selfish.
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  I agree. I agree 100%.
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  I mean, you're right, he said that he he was quoted as saying
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  we must free ourselves from the prison of public and political
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  affairs. And I'm a bit like.
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  OK, he was a bit of a loner and a celibate, right?
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  That's not my portion. Yeah, he obviously he, and for a
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  bit of context, he did live in community with his friends.
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  He basically created his own community.
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  Like he went into the into the hills, bought a house.
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  Like a garden. Yeah.
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  And yeah, his commune was called the Garden because of that
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  garden. And he just went off with his
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  siblings, started a community, and he had followers in the
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  hundreds of thousands stretching all across the Roman Empire.
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  And it actually, it ended up growing and.
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  Growing quite a bit. Until religion because this was
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  obviously BC until religion kicked in.
• 20:28
  But then religious groups sort of created like Christianity
• 20:30
  sort of created something similar like in regards to like
• 20:33
  monasteries. Exactly.
• 20:34
  So they like the idea of it. The idea isn't terrible circuit.
• 20:37
  Yeah, and like you say, the a lot of Epicurean schools and
• 20:42
  communes were then converted into monasteries later on, like
• 20:46
  hundreds of years after Epicurus death.
• 20:49
  I I agree with your point. Like if you focus on your own
• 20:51
  tranquilly it it actually goes beyond the the focus of your own
• 20:57
  tranquilly. When it comes to Epicureanism,
• 21:00
  the actual framework of thinking is an individual framework of
• 21:04
  thinking. It's about your own personal
• 21:07
  pleasure, it's about your own tranquilly, your own fears,
• 21:10
  anxieties, and ultimately your own actions and decisions.
• 21:14
  And I think, I mean, that's a through theme with all of
• 21:17
  Western philosophy, all of the Greeks, all of the modern
• 21:20
  European philosophers, they have this idea of the rational
• 21:25
  individual who gets to pick their own morality.
• 21:30
  They get to do, you know? What I think it's like that.
• 21:32
  I think it's because if I think the theory behind it was if the
• 21:37
  individual was happy. So if every single individual
• 21:39
  was happy, it will then make a happy society and a happy
• 21:43
  community, right? But it doesn't sort of factor in
• 21:47
  that other people need more support than others.
• 21:49
  Yes, exactly that, exactly that. And I think I mean let's, let's
• 21:53
  keep it a buck. A lot of the people who adopted
• 21:56
  Epicureanism at the start genesis of Epicureanism, they
• 22:01
  were high class, they were noble, they were already pretty
• 22:03
  wealthy and they were in their own pursuit of their own
• 22:08
  personal tranquilly and peace. It was it was like a journey of
• 22:12
  discovery for them, a journey of self improvement.
• 22:14
  Now it must be said a lot of the Epicurean schools and communes
• 22:18
  were very diverse. I think women had the most
• 22:21
  rights in society in an Epicurean school.
• 22:24
  They were they were pioneers when it came to women, women's
• 22:26
  rights, but ultimately it's about that individual's journey
• 22:33
  of self improvement. It's not about how can we better
• 22:35
  society for the masses, for everyone and.
• 22:39
  In the on in the same in the same breath, I I don't think the
• 22:43
  right thing to do is to make to go.
• 22:46
  All the way their. Way about other people's causes
• 22:49
  and things that are wrong with the world.
• 22:51
  Like, I don't think that's the answer, I just think there's
• 22:53
  somewhere in the middle you can find.
• 22:54
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think at a bare minimum, like
• 22:57
  we exist within certain communities and a lot of those
• 23:01
  communities have who have shared experiences, we have an
• 23:04
  obligation to try to alleviate the suffering of the people
• 23:08
  whose experiences we share. So we, we're young black men and
• 23:14
  there's other young black men who are suffering with things
• 23:17
  that we intimately understand and deal with on a, on a daily
• 23:20
  basis and a framework that doesn't consider that for me
• 23:25
  feels flawed. Do you see my?
• 23:27
  Point. I'd agree with that.
• 23:28
  I feel it's a philosophy for an individual right?
• 23:32
  And with every philosophy, I'd never think you'd follow it to
• 23:36
  the MTH. Degree, right, right.
• 23:38
  And and like we've said, even with Stoicism at the time, it
• 23:41
  was a Hellenistic period in Stoicism, massive amounts of
• 23:44
  turmoil, massive amounts of like individual suffering, slave
• 23:48
  suffering at the hands of masters.
• 23:50
  Even when you go to work, you're like in a weird relationship
• 23:54
  with your employer where you're completely beholden to the
• 23:57
  employer's whims. That's a tough period.
• 24:00
  And Stoicism was born and thrived in that context.
• 24:04
  And I think we just need to recontextualize anything that
• 24:07
  we're reading here for the modern, modern period.
• 24:09
  Do you know what I mean? Going back to the previous
• 24:11
  question about the romantic relationships, it's a similar
• 24:14
  thing. We're talking about the context
• 24:17
  then. I think it's important to
• 24:19
  consider the context now. On to our final segment, the
• 24:27
  dilemma. Chat to me We've spoken about
• 24:30
  how Epicurious founded this school of communes in ancient
• 24:35
  Greece. Today's dilemma that I want to
• 24:38
  ask you is this. You're invited to an Epicurean
• 24:40
  style commune offering a simple life focused on happiness
• 24:46
  through community and freedom from material excess.
• 24:49
  Half of your friends have already joined, including me.
• 24:51
  However, joining means giving up your income, professional
• 24:55
  identity and access to material goods.
• 24:58
  Do you join? Do.
• 24:59
  You know, do you know an important question?
• 25:01
  Like how old are you? Today, right now, you, you're
• 25:07
  30. I can't and I want.
• 25:11
  To play rugby I. Thought I was going to join but
• 25:13
  no, I just for rugby. No, no, it's not even for so
• 25:16
  much for rugby, forget that. It's more so I have things in my
• 25:22
  mind that I want to achieve, right?
• 25:24
  Like OK, you have things that you want to compete at.
• 25:28
  There's things that you want to, there's a life you want to live
• 25:32
  and for me to leave today or in the next month, it would put a
• 25:37
  big hole in the things I want to achieve and therefore I don't
• 25:40
  know if I would feel like I lived a fulfilled life.
• 25:43
  In the context of the Epicurean philosophy, are the things that
• 25:47
  you want to achieve at active pleasures or static pleasures?
• 25:52
  So also, are the things you want to achieve natural and
• 25:55
  necessary? Right, right.
• 25:58
  Yeah, that's my question to you. No.
• 26:01
  So do you need it like that? But.
• 26:04
  I didn't say I was an Epicurious, of course.
• 26:10
  Of course you don't need them. But what we can't do with
• 26:13
  Epicurianism is act as if this philosophy exists within a
• 26:18
  vacuum or a bubble. Because if, if say, I'm
• 26:22
  introduced, introduced to it today.
• 26:25
  And I agree with what he said. I have 30 years of conditioning
• 26:30
  to try and undo, which I'm not going to undo in a month.
• 26:34
  There might be a time that I might get there.
• 26:35
  Do you get what I mean? But you have you, you have
• 26:39
  needs, right? Like and, and the idea of the
• 26:41
  commune is to make you happy. And the idea of the philosophy
• 26:45
  is if you reduce the amount of needs you have, you then can be
• 26:48
  happy and reach your pleasure. But I've had these needs.
• 26:51
  These needs aren't going to be met in that commune.
• 26:53
  You know what I mean? So it's a matter of these needs
• 26:55
  are still there and I have to satisfy them and then maybe I
• 26:59
  won't add more needs to the current needs I have.
• 27:01
  What about you? No, Before, before I answer the
• 27:03
  question, is this not just a way for you to buy a bit of time,
• 27:09
  achieve your goals and then say Oh yeah I'll reassess after,
• 27:13
  achieve my goals and then join the commune after you've done
• 27:16
  both? You get what I'm saying?
• 27:19
  You get to do your goals and then ah you can have a come to
• 27:22
  Jesus moment when 1/5. I don't.
• 27:23
  I don't see why I should. I should cause myself pain in.
• 27:29
  What in what content? What?
• 27:31
  Are you saying? Epicurean Pain.
• 27:34
  Pain is in like, yeah, displeasure.
• 27:36
  Yeah, displeasure. OK, I don't know why I should
• 27:39
  chase displeasure. But are those things truly going
• 27:43
  to give you pleasure though? Like are you really going to be
• 27:46
  unhappy without achieving those goals?
• 27:49
  Like truly, truly, for real for all.
• 27:51
  Potentially, like I I don't. I don't actually know though.
• 27:54
  Should we? Talk about some of these goals
• 27:55
  then should we talk about some of the goals?
• 27:57
  Do you want to get into it? Well, for example, say say you
• 28:01
  you want to start a family, right?
• 28:03
  Like and your babes don't want to go to this thing.
• 28:07
  Oh, oh, to the commune, yeah. So like how are you supposed to
• 28:09
  then start your family? Oh, you can start a family in
• 28:12
  the commune. And you have to take your babes
• 28:14
  with you. Your relationship, Yeah, yeah.
• 28:19
  That's if they say yes to it, right?
• 28:20
  Yeah. OK.
• 28:20
  So is that OK? We assume they say yes.
• 28:22
  To it. That's the assumption, yeah.
• 28:24
  And the reason why half of your friends have joined is that we
• 28:28
  want to isolate the decision from, oh, I'm going to break all
• 28:31
  my like, loving relationships. You're going to have plenty of
• 28:34
  loving relationships there, especially the key ones, the
• 28:37
  cool ones. I can't.
• 28:38
  I genuinely wouldn't be able to go like straight away.
• 28:40
  Like I would have to test it. Like I have to test where I'm
• 28:43
  happy. That's the I'd have to run a
• 28:45
  trail and see where I'm happiest.
• 28:47
  Like I can't imagine that I'm just going to be like boom.
• 28:50
  But I'm not unhappy. Like I'm a little good, Like
• 28:55
  you're good, I'm happy. So what am I going to go there
• 28:59
  and then maybe be unhappy? You know what I mean?
• 29:01
  The grass isn't always greener. I think I'm joining the commune,
• 29:04
  you know? And I had a feeling you'd be
• 29:06
  like. That I just think you would be
• 29:09
  like that. I just think a commune where
• 29:11
  half my friends already lived there have already joined.
• 29:15
  So I have all of, well, not all of I have a significant portion
• 29:18
  of the meaningful relationships are in the commune.
• 29:23
  I'm not tied to my income, my professional identity or
• 29:26
  material goods. These are the things I'm giving
• 29:28
  up. I'm not tied to them.
• 29:30
  They can go like, what? What?
• 29:33
  What am I like? And I'm not saying you're,
• 29:35
  you're in the commune for life. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:37
  Yeah, of course. Some communes might not work for
• 29:40
  you like there's obviously when you get into the detail.
• 29:43
  I just find it tough to be like, oh, you've explained this to me
• 29:46
  and I'm like, yeah, OK, I'm going to go.
• 29:47
  You know what I mean? Like that sounds world to me.
• 29:50
  Like I can't, I can't see myself ever doing that.
• 29:53
  So when you read about Epicureanism and you read about
• 29:56
  Epicurious sort of taking his siblings and friends into this
• 30:01
  company in the garden, what did that make you feel like?
• 30:05
  How? What sort of life did you feel
• 30:06
  like he was living? I was.
• 30:08
  Like we're kind of happy. Like particularly if if I was
• 30:12
  20, like it's a, it's just different.
• 30:16
  You get what I mean? Like.
• 30:17
  I thought you when you asked me how old would I be going in, I
• 30:20
  thought you might have wanted to go later in life.
• 30:23
  Either go later or earlier. Do you know what I mean?
• 30:26
  Like it feels like I'm in a tipping point, OK, Do you know
• 30:29
  what I mean? Late 20s, early 30s is like a
• 30:31
  kind of tipping point in your life, like right?
• 30:33
  And it feels like this is just a weird point to be like up and
• 30:36
  dump everything. Do you know what I mean?
• 30:38
  Whilst like when you're younger, you can take more risks, you
• 30:42
  have less responsibilities. And when you're older, those
• 30:45
  risks and responsibilities have have matured, but round this
• 30:49
  sort of age, you don't actually know which way you're going.
• 30:53
  So I find it kind of difficult at this age to be like, OK,
• 30:57
  boom, like what if I don't like it?
• 30:59
  Do you? It's just I think it's kind of
• 31:00
  difficult at late 20s, early 30s time of.
• 31:04
  Age. Yeah, fair.
• 31:04
  There's actually a type of like living that's like emerging now
• 31:09
  online. It's a company that basically
• 31:12
  creates these pods where multiple families can all live
• 31:15
  together. It's like it'll be like six or
• 31:17
  seven families all living together.
• 31:19
  They have like maybe you 2 communal kitchen spaces, but you
• 31:23
  basically live on a compound together.
• 31:25
  It's like almost like a. Whole family.
• 31:26
  You've got a house like you've got a pod where you sleep with
• 31:29
  your partner and potentially your child, but like you share
• 31:33
  the communal areas together. That's who's.
• 31:35
  That's literally. Yeah, but it's not who's.
• 31:38
  When you say who's, that's like. You're.
• 31:41
  Denigrating everything. They live in the boarding house,
• 31:50
  man they. Live for like I'll send you the
• 31:54
  link after this. I can't like, look sick.
• 31:57
  Is that is that? I know they do that in Asia.
• 32:00
  Oh, is it? Yeah, I know they do that in
• 32:01
  Asia. I don't know they do that in
• 32:03
  Western society. Well, look.
• 32:04
  I think the company I saw was the American company, and I
• 32:08
  think they've basically bought a bit of land, or they do this on
• 32:11
  a bit of land a bit separate from like current settlements
• 32:15
  and like towns and cities. And you are that.
• 32:18
  Bangs. Oh, do you like?
• 32:20
  That 100% do that Austin, like me and Amanda with our little
• 32:26
  families and stuff, you know sit.
• 32:28
  Down OK with your with your. Of course.
• 32:31
  Yeah, you get. We're talking about who's like,
• 32:34
  literally. You met.
• 32:35
  His family and you're going to like kind of share the same sort
• 32:38
  of thing with. Them you could do that if you
• 32:40
  wanted to get involved, I'm sure you could like.
• 32:42
  Spare room kind of thing, that. Kind of.
• 32:46
  You'll find a new ways to disrespect it.
• 32:52
  Who's digs? Boarding house.
• 32:55
  Spare room. Thank you a lot for joining us.
• 33:02
  I hope you learned something. It's been a pleasure.
• 33:05
  Take care. See you next week, man.
• 33:19
  Yeah, so. Question on friendships.
• 33:22
  That's the one it might but like.
• 33:25
  Why? Cool.
• 33:31
  Good. Was that anyone?
• 33:33
  That was it, yeah.