Daniel KleinTravels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life

Daniel Klein is at the top of his game with Travels with Epicurus. At seventy-three, he is authentically ripe himself to write this sweet book on how to grow old with dignity and a sense of fulfillment. His reader trusts him because Klein knows from experience what he's talking about.Klein defies getting "old old ," as he humorously defines decreptitude, not only by writing this book--a great companion to the book he co-authored--Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar that illustrates the principles of the great philosophers with jokes--but on the heels of Travels with Epicurus, he has written an entertaining novel with a philosophical bent--Nothing Serious. To top it off, he wrote a new play, The Jewish Jester: A Fable with Music," which premiered in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, May 9-12, 2013, at New Stage Performing Arts. While Klein may eschew America's worship of "trying to stay young," the upward trajectory of his accomplishments as an "old" man paradoxically has the prolificacy and energy of youth.But I have a personal reason for particularly appreciating Klein's little books on philosophy. After dropping out of college at the age of eighteen, I returned to finish my undergraduate degree cum laude at the age of forty-two, when I won a fellowship to the Ph.D. program in philosophy at a university in the City of New York. When I received an unaccustomed C on my first paper there, I went to talk with the professor. At the end of our discussion, I asked to see an A paper, which he was proud to show me, written, he said, by his best student. I found the paper unintelligible. I felt it was written in code, a private language that only philosophers who were members of the club could understand. It went against everything egalitarian I ever believed in about thinking and writing clearly so that others could understand what you say, so that they could think and talk about what you were thinking and talking about too.Klein has the ability to move his reader with his gentle candor, while giving her something to think about and often something to laugh about. As a philosopher, Klein not only puts clear thinking and writing into his accessible books Travels with Epicurus and Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar, but especially in Travels with Epicurus, he succeeds in putting age back into sage.

[...]I just finished reading Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life by Daniel Klein. Klein's book is a kind of travel guide for the life well-lived. As I read it, as a septuagenarian I wanted to throw my hands in the air and shout, "This is the best time in my life!"Klein discusses the Buddha's principle of "the emptiness of striving": In our consumer-driven society, enough is never enough; we finish one goal only to replace it with another; we don't lose ourselves in play but are always trying to reach our "personal best;" relationships are a means to an end rather than an end in themselves; and nothing has much meaning.Klein's speaks of this time in our lives, -- the time before "old" old age sets in -- as having unlimited opportunities, and he does provide some prescriptive elements for the best possible life during this period of limited and diminishing time.Many of those opportunities have to do with spending time with people from who you no longer want anything. He says, for example, that choosing our dinner companions is far more important than the menu. One does not have to be old to enjoy the pleasure of spending slow time with good people.The ages of 40-60 years old are the most stressful in people's lives: Dual caregiving (parents and kids), careers plateau, decline in health, difficulty with sexual function, questioning never-previously-examined values, and not many "do overs." For-profit corporations (particularly during the recent economic down-turn) no longer value their employees; they are expendable commodities.The Centers for Disease Control recently validated this with its finding that between 1999-2010 the suicide rate for people between the ages of 35 and 64 years old increased an alarming 28.4%. It is likely higher since many suicides go unreported.Because of my interest in mature gay/bi/questioning men, I have often wondered -- but of course it is never studied -- how those suicide rates are impacted by those who remain hopelessly conflicted about their sexual orientation. In my research for writing my book, Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, A Psychiatrist's Own Story, I interviewed many men who felt trapped in midlife.As a psychiatric physician I do take some exception to a couple of things. He implies that taking testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is simply to improve sex drive in older men. For men with low testosterone it can enhance strength and vigor, not just sex drive. He also suggest there is no need to use anti-depressants in the "old" old. People don't "deserve" to be depressed just because they are very old or getting there. Although neither TRT nor anti-depressants are a magic bullet, both -- for some -- can improve their quality of life and contribute to a life well-lived.We only have one life; live it the best way possible: Search for your personal good enough.Loren A Olson MD DLFAPA[...]

Very enjoyable read.

This I the second time I’m reading this book, few years apart. I love the beginning, the beautiful description of life on Hydra and the handsome and fulfilled old man at Dimitri’s taverna. Had the author continued with this simple, yet powerful expression of a fulfilled life in old age, I’d have thoroughly enjoyed my journey reading the book and would have given it four to five stars.However, he gets too dry and philosophical quoting ancient philosophers. I also believe that author's approach was somewhat gender biased, most of the time referring to the experiences of men in older age.

I got this book to read on a trip to Hydra in Greece. Not only did I fall more in love with this place and this people, but I learned a bit about philosophy, mindfulness, and living the good life. What a privilege to read this book.