On my mother’s side, I come from a family of thinkers, visionaries, and philosophers. Certain branches of Brahmins dug deep into philosophy, and this family certainly did just that. However, peddling with philosophy can be dangerous ground unless thinking is harnessed to focus on building a clear life journey ahead.

Nalini Mohan Shastri of South Calcutta, West Bengal, India, was my great-grandfather on my maternal side. He belonged to the age of 19th-century thinkers. I believe that apart from being a Sanskrit scholar and associated with women’s education, he was also trying to build some sort of dynastic legacy. The family started naming all their male babies with the letter ‘M’. Only a mere foundation was laid, unfortunately. But the deep desire was latent and was carried for three generations.

It was a foggy vision alone! It was stuck and passed from generation to generation.

Dynastic legacies that are crystal clear ensure ease of living for all those who are drawn to take shelter in them. That is how undivided Hindu and Muslim families founded firm grounds for their future generations. This thinking is not unknown to other parts of the world. I am led today to give a bird’s-eye view of Epicurean philosophy as it still promises to carve out sustainable visions from a source to a majority. It still contains the blueprint of a lighthouse sans religious leanings.

Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for his ethical teachings, focused on simple living, friendship, and peace of mind and asserted that philosophy’s purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain tranquil lives, characterized by freedom from fear and the absence of pain. This was a similar goal to all the wisemen’s beliefs back in India for thousands of years.

Thus started the Epicurean school of thinking and philosophy during his lifetime, between 341 BC to 270 BC. He was cautious when he taught that one must not strive for things beyond our current environment only to lose what we have at the moment.

Epicurus was a strong proponent of friendship and trust—the two pillars on which anything substantial can be gained beyond our own basic requirements. According to Epicurus, wisdom and friendship are essential for achieving a secure and happy life, with friendship being particularly important. The deeper this friendship, the greater the trust!

Epicurus also suggested that a wise person manages external challenges through reason.  These challenges are merely external, and one’s analytical ability through our mental faculties has to be exercised in order to solve complex problems. When one learns to manage one’s internal challenge without looking for an alibi, one is ready to build a strong relationship on the outside.

Epicurus focused on a balanced approach as he taught others how to live well. Living well could easily mean different things to different people. However, the universe always guides us to find a balanced state of living, as through our human bodies we all desire to live with ease and comfort. Epicurus considered pleasure (understood as freedom from pain and mental distress) to be the fundamental good and the basis of a happy life and created his ethical system. It was a deeper sense of pleasure from grasping the true essence and meaning of life.

The ancient philosophers were great thinkers who attracted to their fold numerous followers who are termed “disciples” in modern parlance. They created frameworks of thought processes that were doable and repeatable. A clear-cut roadmap carved out then ensured that all others could then follow through and enjoy the ease of living in this life itself. These systems established by thinkers, gurus, and philosophers then ensured that a pleasant life is intertwined with living wisely, well, and justly.  They were akin to our contemporary life coaches.

Epicurus’s wise caution to the ambitious: Do not spoil what you have, by desiring what you have not

From my knowledge of the great thinkers, visionaries, and socially awakened families of South Kolkata, I glean several important insights to this day. They threw caution to the winds and followed their hearts. It was an age of free thinking, the winds of which caught their sails from 19th-century Western thinkers.

Within a 5 km radius of the heart of South Kolkata, barristers, politicians, and educators were born with hopes and dreams of a golden age to come in the region from the late nineteenth century. Unfortunately, they failed to build upon what they already had and what they gained from different rulers in the region over generations. They were thirsty to learn new ways of thinking in science, religion, philosophy, politics, and every other branch of human thinking that we can name today! They were well-meaning and upright with good intentions, and yet they failed in stewarding what they had, which was substantial in most cases.

The region produced stalwarts like Somnath Chatterjee, Jyoti Basu, and Pranab Mukherjee, to name a few. There were others who were educators and lived enlightened lives, opening up to new ways of thinking and social transformation. Statues of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Vivekananda, and others are reminders from the past in small winding streets populated with sick animals, distressed elders, and youths lost living in a frenzied city life.

There’s now an air of doom and gloom that surrounds this area. Folks bandage it with fast food, frenzied shopping, and nuclear family living. However, this does not address the larger social complexities that stare right at us when we visit this place. Nostalgia is quickly replaced with asking those much-needed questions of what, how, when, and why.

Solutions leap into my mind and keep me awake. I reach out to potential leaders, and I encounter blank faces. However, all humans are prisoners of hope in this life and desire to make the most out of each day. The world we live in now explodes with information and knowledge. This knowledge can be leveraged to solve all the problems that we encounter each day. Even mental shifts are possible through replacing with a thinking that is urgently required to solve these ground-level problems.

Democracy gives us the freedom to speak and act. It can be done within or out of the family sphere if need be. We need a healthy functioning democracy where there’s a freedom of expression. Sleeping people under some kind of stupor is not the norm in a vibrant and regulated responsible democracy.

Now is the time to build our friendships and connections once again. Now is the time to focus on a common goal and live in the needs of the present moment. Now is the time to stoke up that dying fire of dynastic legacy. Now is the time to go back and study the thinking of philosophers like Epicurus. Some thoughts never die. They simply need to be lived out in our present context.

When I look at thousands of displaced families on the deserted train tracks under the Dhakuria Bridge, something within me stirs. When I meet young youths in multinational companies, soaked in sweat under the hot sun, sharing their stories of despair, something within me stirs. When I encounter distressed elders on the streets of South Kolkata, something within me stirs. When I grab anything that is handy to bar the stench from going up my nostrils as I gingerly wade through the city streets and its bylanes, something within me stirs!

When I encounter the little stubs on the hardened earth, I have a glimmer of hope. I encounter a study center in a temple, and I feel uplifted. I encounter an old derelict library from the British times, administrative wards that have been set up, and auto rickshaws complying with the regulated fares set up by the local authorities.

There’s a stirring and longing in the hearts of the local youth. There are youths that at hurting and protective of the way they are living out their daily lives as well.

I see gaps everywhere waiting to be filled in.

Can fresh life be infused into dynastic legacies once again? Are our ancestors calling us to lay aside our self-centered, egoistic ways and come together and dream again? All it requires is a shared vision and a steadfast will to accomplish.

Once we determine the ‘what,’ the ‘how’ takes care of itself.