“I was afraid before; I’m Not Afraid Anymore… Do You Know What That’s Worth?” Was that Lucretius, or ….. Belinda Carlisle?

Continuing with a second post with a musical theme, here’s a video with lyrics that always impressed me, even before I started my study of Epicurus.

“… Do you know what that’s worth? … Heaven is a place on earth.”

“…They say in Heaven, loves comes first; We’ll make Heaven a place on earth.”

“…In this world we’re just beginning …to understand the miracle of living;

….Baby I was afraid before; I’m not afraid any more.”

– Belinda Carlisle

 Compare:

You, father, found the truth; you gave to us
A Father’s wisdom, and from every page,
O most illustrious in renown, we take,
As bees do from the flowery banks of summer,
The benefit of all your golden words,
The gold most worthy of eternal life;
For, once your reason, your divining sense,
Begins its proclamation, telling us
The way things are, all terrors of the mind
Vanish, are gone; the barriers of the world
Dissolve before me, and I see things happen
All through the void of empty space.  I see
The gods majestic, and their calm abodes
Winds do not shake, nor clouds befoul, nor snow
Violate with the knives of sleet and cold;
But there the sky is purest blue, the air
Is almost laughter in that radiance,
And nature satisfies their every need,
And nothing, nothing, mars their calm of mind.

Lucretius, Book III