Introduction: Sunday Evening and the Infinite Scroll
Sunday evening. You’ve turned off the lights and are sitting in the living room. Your face glows under the phone screen’s tomb-like illumination. Your thumb keeps scrolling endlessly through social media. A comedy video, then a recipe, followed by a political debate… Even the video that made you smile a few seconds ago now turns into nausea and that void asking, “What’s next?” The package is almost empty—where is that last warm piece?
This scene repeats everywhere, every moment: from apartment flats to bus seats, office corners to coffee breaks. We call it “passing time,” “relaxing,” or “rewarding myself.” But what’s really at work is simpler and harsher: a hunter on standby for a crumb of pleasure. A “like” notification from social media, a praise email at work, or a “shipped” alert from a shopping site… These are short-lived moments of warmth we quickly consume from the outside. They all end the same way: fading away.
When you step outside, you see a man sighing as he gazes at an expensive watch in a store window. In his eyes, there’s the glitter of owning that watch. That glitter will fade a few days after he buys it, replaced by the dream of a new model. This is called “hedonic adaptation.” Even winning a huge lottery jackpot only brings a brief peak of happiness before returning you to your baseline. Like a law of physics: no matter how high you jump, gravity always pulls you back to the same spot. So why do we keep entering the same cycle? Just to hit the same wall over and over?
Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. “How can I get more pleasure?” always leads to the same dead end. We’re trying to quench our thirst by drinking saltwater faster. Each sip brings sharper thirst. The finger scrolling for that next video isn’t just chasing “pleasure”; it’s fleeing the moment’s boredom, thoughts, or perhaps being alone with oneself. The real issue is the void triggering that escape.
Right here, the voice of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus echoes. Though “epicurean” today brings luxury meals and wines to mind, he actually lived modestly in a garden with friends, content with cheese and water. His idea of “pleasure” wasn’t about stuffing the stomach but mental peace and anxiety-free tranquility. So, does that Sunday evening spent in screen light offer us “anxiety-free tranquility,” or does it cover up a deep restlessness?
Part 1: Epicurus’s Garden and the Pleasure Filter
You’re on your phone right now, aren’t you? Your thumb is about to make a move toward the screen. Just then, it pauses mid-air. A voice inside asks, “Will this truly make me happy, or just satisfy my next urge?” In that moment, you’re right in the heart of the questioning that happened in Epicurus’s garden in a corner of Athens in 306 BCE.
Epicurus said true pleasure is not of the stomach but of the mind’s serenity. In his garden,…