The Epicurean sorting of desires is the practical core, and it is unglamorous by design: natural and necessary (food, shelter, safety, friends), natural but unnecessary (better food, a bigger house), and neither natural nor necessary (fame, power, wealth for its own sake). Only the first class must be satisfied; the second may be enjoyed when it costs nothing; the third is a trap because it has no ceiling. This is what "pleasure" meant in the school — ataraxia, freedom from disturbance, not indulgence — and the popular sense of "epicurean" as gourmet is a two-thousand-year slander that stuck. Epicurus asked for a pot of cheese so that he could dine lavishly when he wished.