Drinking Coffee—An Epicurean Pleasure and a Source of Chronic Pain Relief…and my Response to the New Weeping Woman at MOMA
While dining at the 2nd Floor Café at MOMA today,
I took an Epicurean delight in my chickpea/fennel salad, replete with beets and
a side of focaccia, paired with a delicately brewed skim latte. Contrary to
popular belief, Epicurus (b. 341 bc) was not a glutton. There were ugly rumors
that Epicurus had to vomit twice a day because he ate so much, and that he
would go into sexual frenzies during which time, he would write lewd letters.
Not true at all. In fact, he espoused
happiness based on simple pleasures. According to Alain de Botton, writing in “Consolations
of Philosophy,” Epicurus’s perception of happiness was based on several basic
things: freedom from pain, friendship, freedom, and thought---meaning the
possibility of thinking things through, analyzing them and discussing with
others. Epicurus cultivated a group of friends, who along with him, preferred
water to wine; who enjoyed long walks, and conversation. He once said, “Luxurious
foods and drinks in no way produce freedom from harm and a healthy condition in
the flesh.
In many ways,
drinking coffee fulfills the Epicurean ideal. It is a straightforward, natural,
health-inducing agent that gives rise to energy and good conversation. But, now
there’s new information that suggests that coffee fulfills another Epicurean
ideal: It relieves pain. In a study published in January 2012 in BMC
Research Notes, 48 subjects, including 22 with chronic neck and shoulder pain,
were evaluated to see how coffee consumption would affect their experience of
pain during computer-based office work. Forty percent (19 people) drank coffee
about an hour before the study, which lasted 90 minutes.
Coffee drinkers experienced significantly less pain than
non-coffee drinkers. For example, when it came to pain intensity in the neck
and shoulders, coffee-drinkers experience a pain level of 41 (on a scale of 1
to 100), compared with 55 for non-coffee-drinkers.
I was alone at MOMA on this day, because I felt I
desperately needed the solitude. I had spent the morning walking around---about
75 blocks altogether---and decided to drop in for the sole purpose of viewing
Picasso’s “Weeping Woman” print---a new acquisition. Though she is clearly a feminine being, her
grotesquely enlarged fingers, rotting teeth and misshapen eyes bulging in their
sockets give the weeping woman a monstrous appearance. Looking at this picture, it did not seem to me
that Picasso was conveying an ugly woman, rather he was showing us an
emotionally distraught woman. Presumably
this was the case, and the “ugliness” of the woman in question was indeed a
function of distorted emotions.
Sometimes life is very challenging, and though coffee is not
always a cure-all, indeed a cup of coffee can ease psychological distress---and
as we have discovered, physical distress as well.
Comments
In polls on various websites and through other means, Picasso nearly always ranks 1st in popularity to this day. Apparently, modern art of such quality and inventiveness, always remains modern.
And, of course, you were not alone. You were with the manifestation of inspiration. In this case the inspiration was Dora Maar. The mind that conceived it was a complex talent.
Sort of awesome that you made this choice of places to go, and things to do. You know how to heal yourself, which is a part of self-actualization.
The healing part was to go to a place where you were sure to have an emotional reaction of some kind when you were feeling emotional about other things. Rather brilliant really, and completely the right thing to do, in my opinion.
Shan Sa - Empress