Sunday, March 10, 2013

Epictetus book II, 1-26

While reading Epictetus, book II, 1, sentence 26, the though struck me that overcoming overeating compulsion, which I have suffered from my entire life, is much like a slave gaining freedom. We experience the freedom from bondage, and are elated with joy, enthusiasm, and hope, without a clue what is about to hit us. The next day or soon, we are faced with the reality of what we do not know, and realize what is about to hit us. Now we need to learn to live, free from this bondage. This is not dissimilar to what the freed slaves must have experienced after the US Civil War, where they went from fed slaves to starving freeman overnight.

I had to learn about food, what food really is, and what food is not. Society has produced the wrong information, and the media reported all wrong, untrue information. I had to learn to cook, and what to cook so that I could eat a reasonable diet, free of addictive foods, and/or appetite stimulating foods. A diet that produce satiation and satiety until the next meal is required for reasonable life.

I had to learn a new way of thinking, to avoid those society created traps that exist for us compulsive overeaters, and method to overcome the ignorance of others about the problem. It is not just ignorance, for that would be easy to deal with, but the utter disbelief of some that food is the problem.

What is a child? Ignorance and inexperience. (Epictetus II, 1, 16) With respect to food and real food issues, that is where I started, and where most people are at today.

I had to learn a new way of thinking, and stumbled across the Stoics. But what do I know?

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