As we learned in class, the Epicurean philosophy focuses on the idea of ataraxia and living a good, stress-free, and
happy life by means of simplicity. One does not need the more lavish things in
life in order to be happy. True happiness comes from within. It comes from
having what you need, as well as from
having loving relationships with the people you care about.
Just about every
verse in J Cole’s song Love Yourz
illustrates Epicurus’ idea of a good life in a more modern perspective. He
states “For what’s money without happiness, or hard times without the people
you love?” You can obtain all of the unnatural and unnecessary things that life
has to offer, but you will not be living a good life if you are not happy and
at peace with just having the natural and necessary things. Life will always
have obstacles we will have trouble overcoming, but we will struggle even more if we do not
have good relationships with people we adore who help us get through them.
The song continues,
“Always gon’ be a bigger house somewhere, but feel me, long as the people in
that love you dearly... always gon’ be a whip that’s better than the one you got,
always gon’ be some clothes that’s fresher than the ones you rock…but you ain’t
never ‘gon be happy till you love yours.” There will always be someone living better than you financially, but that means nothing if they are not as content as one with very little of the supposed "finer" things in life. At the end of it all, the true finer things of life are the things that money could never possibly buy. J Cole's music video for the song even depicts greatly Epicurus' idea that having more or wanting more does not lead to happiness; it can be found on YouTube.
The reality is that looking for more unnecessary,
unnatural things in life in order to fulfill an insatiable desire for happiness
will not ever bring happiness. It will
only bring more loneliness, sadness, anger, etc. J Cole’s song stresses that in
order to be happy, you must first love your life, no matter how rich or poor it may be.
First, I would like to mention that this is a great blog post. In addition there are many concepts of philosophy throughout Cole's music. In his albums: KOD, Born Sinner, & 2014 Forest Hill Drive he conveys Confucius's belief of "The Good Life."
ReplyDelete"Love Yourz" is one of my favorite J.Cole songs. Yesterday while reading the Chapter 5 in "The Happiness Hypothesis" an example was used to example levels of happiness and factors that cause it. The example used was of a wealthy, attractive bachelor living in sunny California and a older, ill, church-going lady in Buffalo, NY. The author explained how even though the man has everything going for him, the lady is happier mostly due to the fact she is married and social. When reading this chapter I was reminded of the Live Version of "Love Yourz" that J.Cole recorded in his hometown. In the live version, he starts the song with a speech to the crowd about the message of the song. Towards the end he uses an example of a dude with alot money, cars and girls. J.Cole explains that this dude is miserable. Then he describes a family without a lot of money that lives in bad conditions but they are happy. J.Cole explains the reason the family is so happy is because of love.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great blog post because our generation can relate to it so well. Personally, I’m a huge fan of J Cole and I had no idea that he used epicurean philosophy in his music, I guess you learn something new everyday. The funny thing is that I was actually listening to J Cole when I opened and read this, quite the coincidence...
ReplyDelete