A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter E

Eudaimonism

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Eudaimonism is the ethical view that human flourishing (eudaimonia) is the highest good, achieved through virtuous activity in accordance with reason.

Detailed Definition
Poetry explores eudaimonism by depicting lives aligned with virtue, harmony, or purpose. Through narrative or reflective voice, poems weigh what constitutes a good life—not hedonistically but through integrity, creativity, or connection—offering visions of fulfillment rooted in philosophical ideals of human excellence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (influencing poetic ideals) frames human good as virtuous activity; Robert Frost’s “Birches” suggests life’s balance of play and duty as flourishing; Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things” links ecological harmony to personal wholeness; Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” culminates in “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” as eudaimonic question; Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” affirms familial craft as dignified flourishing; Li-Young Lee’s “The Gift” portrays gentle care as ethical fulfillment.
Additional Notes
Eudaimonism (Aristotle) identifies flourishing (eudaimonia) as life’s highest end, achieved through virtue and reason—not pleasure. In poetry, it appears as visions of integrated life: Berry’s agrarian harmony, Lee’s familial care. Contrast with hedonism or romantic excess. Students should note how poems weigh momentary joy against enduring fulfillment. Related to flourishing, hexis, and praxis, but teleological. Professors can use it to discuss poetry’s ethical function beyond catharsis.
Also Known As
Happiness theory Flourishing ethics
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