What is Epicurean Commitment?

If this is your first time on this site, you may want to read, what Epicurean Commitment means.    If you want to read ads or add your own, you can go directly to:  

Male Epicurean looking for a mate

Female Epicurean looking for a mate

(Please note, that English is not the author's native language)

Epicurean commitment is the kind of bonding and attachment, that suits those people as their natural inclination, who have, what can be called an 'Epicurean Brain.'   
An Epicurean brained person is innately predisposed in a specific way concerning what determines, influences or modifies the behavior.  
  1. Those instincts, which people share with animals, have no strong power over them.  Epicurean brained persons are rationally guided by long term goals.  They are not helpless slaves of overwhelming urges towards the restoration of instinctive homeostasis.  They are able to have rational self-control over whatever instincts they do feel.  
  2. The pleasure center of an Epicurean brain is predominantly sensitive, perceptive and responsive to emotional, intellectual and immaterial stimulation and less to physical stimulation.
   
People with such an Epicurean brain are a minority.  People of minority groups are often at the risk of either being lonely or being unhappily mismatched.   As a consequence, many minority groups are using the web to find likeminded friends and partners.   But I did not find any web page for people with an Epicurean brain looking for a partner.    Therefore I decided to start one myself.  

I prefer to talk about the Epicurean brain and not about Epicureans, because Epicureans are those interested and in favor of the philosophy of Epicurus mainly as a theory.   An Epicurean brained person is comfortable with the lifestyle of how the people lived in Epicurus' garden community, with accommodations and alterations due to the different circumstances 2300 years later.  
Happiness in everyday life depends at least as much on a shared life style and not only on sharing the exact identical interpretation of philosophical texts.   Therefore this page focuses on matching persons with the Epicurean brain.   
Someone can have an Epicurean brain and feel attracted to this way of life, even though he has never even heard the name of Epicurus.   An Epicurean philosopher may well consider the Epicurean way of life as an ideal in theory, while living like this himself does not make him automatically feel comfortable.  

The basics of Epicurean philosophy and lifestyle can be found here.   But whoever is reading this, is most probably already well informed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_happiness#Epicurus

People with an Epicurean brain are not only a minority, but their preference and comfort zone of how to live is in contrast and incompatible with the development of modern society.   Many people with such a brain are brainwashed to conform or to hide instead of being able to stand up for their true self and needs.  

Brutality has always been a part of human nature, but traditionally it was restricted to the members of an outgroup, while people were striving to treat the ingroup members with responsibility and consideration.  
Reading on the web about other people's experiences I am observing a general desensitization of what people ruthlessly and carelessly do to each other.  They reinforce each other to consider ruthless and inconsiderate behavior as acceptable, because others do the same. 
Indiscriminate physical brutalization and desensitization as a result of violence in tv, media, the web and some computer games are at least widely discussed as a problem.  But nobody seems to even really notice the more subtle emotional brutalization, that only leaves invisible scars.   Promiscuous using and abusing, dumping, cheating and poofing, lying and manipulating have become so widespread behaviors between closely and intimately related persons, that instead of defining such behaviors as an outrage, the victims are considered the unlucky ones, who are not fit for the unavoidable realities of modern life.  
People are brainwashed to be tough, and if they are not, they take tranquilizers and anti-depressants.  
When people are hurt beyond endurance, they get sick, stressed, depressive, but nobody suggests the simple and most logical prevention of not hurting people and of recognizing and acknowledging people's true vulnerability.     
The Epicurean Commitment therefore includes the conscious rejection of the general and insidious brutalization of society.  

The core of the Epicurean Commitment is Epicurus' principle of not harming and not being harmed and it adds to this the focus on emotional pain as something to not inflict upon, but protect from.   

This means
  • to be guided by responsibility, consideration, being bound by moral obligations.  
  • to be aware and mindful for the consequences of one's own behavior on the other and to ask, how the partner wants and needs to be treated.   
  • not to play with or to be careless about another person's feelings.
  • honesty, sincerity, trust and trustworthiness and being predictable and reliable, so that the other can feel safe.
  • to invest time, energy and effort in the improvement of the relationship and in communicating and listening.  
  • monogamy and fidelity.  Any other behavior bears a high risk of hurting the partner, because the one, who is more attached, is vulnerable.  
  • sharing decisions, because the helpless person, who has no influence upon what the other does, gets hurt. 
  • equality, because being dominated is painful. 
  • that when compromising, the avoidance of pain has priority over gaining more or less pleasure or benefit.
  • appreciation of a partner as a significant person, and being together is rewarding in itself.  
  • having as many interests, hobbies, attitudes in common as possible, so that sharing activities together is an important source of joy.
  • not perceiving the partner as a utility or commodity for the purpose of selfish benefits.
  • treating the partner according to individual needs and not according to gender roles, projections or preconceptions.
  • making a conscious responsible decision to either get involved and accept all responsibility of commitment or refrain from getting involved.   Not fulfilling another's expectation of mutual commitment causes pain.

Leaving aside my own personal preference for being an atheist and childfree, which cannot be derived from Epicurus' philosophy, there is a more elaborated outline about the meaning of Epicurean Commitment in my other blog, where I called it Egalitarian Rational Commitment Paradigm.      
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