Polar Opposition

At the extremes: Stoic -vs-Epicurean

Epicurean: One should enjoy life to its fullest by savouring each experience.

Stoic: It is good to be happy, but you lose the habit of accentuating each mild pleasure when you pursue only the epitome of pleasure. Old age will come and leave a hollow want, where the statement that you must have been great is only a bitterness. It is better to habituate satisfaction with the moment, letting the cherry on top come as a passing fruit bound to fade.

Epicurean: I might be persuaded to believe as you do, but so few truly uphold such lofty ideals. To me, you stoics are lost in the ways present before the cursed house of Atreus came, passed into oblivion, and left its dreadful spectre. There is too much demand upon the world to live in the right way. One must accept that much has been lost, it is clear. Instead, it is pursuit of the moments enhanced satisfaction which enables the vigour of passions and curiosity so important to the human spirit. Such things are lost in your puritan and spartan ways, but tracing the glory of the form reveals its essence and the habit of excellence.

Stoic: Indeed, I am bound to agree wholeheartedly with you! For I would wish to accept your statements, if only they were upheld in the ideal as a reality. When one loses the happiness of the moment in pursuit of the height of pleasure it is shown how much that pursuit is part of the death curse however. Worse, if one is to fade into a desperate situation, they are closer bound to slavery in happiness or escapist comforts and denial, then they are to the true joy of the pinnacle. When the pinnacle is attained any moment, it becomes only the basis, the path of good life is lost to the image of better and best. Once more, when this fades, only bitterness will be habituated. Though there may be those who find ever-recurring satisfaction they also so often express joy for the moment. Not every moment, but self-sufficiency in hardship and passionate expression at the moment of exotic pleasure and abiding happiness in the small things done well.

Epicurean: I may have found myself at a loss to this argument you make, oh sire of my soul! Let me then question you on this. Suppose that one does in fact find the abiding happiness you speak of? Does this mean that it is known entirely what the true form of the expression is, even if one may surpass all others in many fields? Do they know all things, or may they have deep faults which any well journeyed being may point out? If this is the case, then how does one find that perfection of form, to which one only reaches for and adapts in the moment. What is in the truest excellence but a deep respect for the fullest expression of the form. More than this, when one is wearried from many experiments and many failures, much practice, what is it but the joy which one must become enchanted with, the story of wonderlust which empowers holds true the course?

Stoic: Well met sir. It is true that we enchant ourselves with the great myths of our time, not out of belief, but to maintain zeal in through the dark or the hard of finding how the act is best expressed this moment. And yet, one may consider the pool table as analogy. With every trick of a subtler sort there is a series of straight lines in the minds eye, it is precision. In the heat of intense action, it is the breath which steadies, the one stride which guides the focus, which then gives skill to the risks taken by a clear mind. Once more, it is the moments appreciation which endures, the supper that day which is the glory of kinship or the dullness of the rote way. In that there is not a continuous excitement, but awareness and contentment within the simple motion and smile. What need do I have here of the fancy lace which traces the form? One may discover and explore, but it is the smile, the lifted eyes, the acceptance of the gaze which ring true and create that light which our eyes give to the form. For we make the form wonderful, by our gaze and not by the form itself, in this we discover our soul.

Epicurean: So it is true, for now I will submit and train my mind as you say. For we must meet again one day upon the field of battle and do justice! Let your form be the dominant today, since it seems to have the vigour to persist in the coming calm. I must go and train, for the day when the deep passion of the soul once more challenges for primacy amongst the races! For our competitions ought be those of the gods and make all things divine by their passing moment.

Dedicated to Athena, Lugh, and Loki