Swerving Towards Metriopatheia
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Not too long ago I mentioned here my discovery that I no longer had to listen to my favourite CDs. It seems that old age brings some strange benefits. The music is in my head and I can listen to Gerry Mulligan play My Funny Valentine in the many (about 8) different recordings that I have. It is as liberating as my now useless talent for listening to scratchy LP records with my built-in-my-head scratch filter.
We have a Sony Trinitron TV with a 21 inch screen. It gives an image, not especially sharp, via a cathode ray tube, the very same device inside my monitor on which I am now writing this. Rosemary and I have the TV in our smallish den. We are close to the TV so the image is just fine. We will buy one of those flat screen devices only when our Sony gives up the ghost.
It has been at least a year since we dispensed with three meals a day. We follow our light breakfast with a meal around 6 when we watch the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. We have yet to invest in TV trays but I can see them coming soon. Our meals are very good as we have fresh fruit, salads, fruit drinks done in the blender and we eat barbecued chicken, and small portions of barbecued meat or done in the oven. Our desserts are either yoghurt or yoghurt ice cream.
But we have been known for spoiling all that with little obsessions for candy bars. A couple of years ago they were Butterfinger Bars, until recently they were Mars Bars. Rosemary’s technique is to put the Mars Bar on the kitchen counter and to slice thin portions with our kitchen knife. But before you know it the bar is gone.
It has been two months since my desire for Mars Bars completely disappeared. There are times when I think about what I might want to eat just for pleasure and my imagination goes blank. I have lost my appetite.
In Mexico City, back in December, I saw so much food being consumed on the street and on the street corners that I always felt full. I never did eat all the meals I vowed I would eat in Mexico.
Without being philosophical or thinking about the teachings of Epicurus I feel that at my age of 70 I am now living a life of Epicurean moderation.
There is only one more aspect of Epicureanism that I must master:
Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo (I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care)
