Spinoza, simply.

The big ideas

Ten ideas, in plain words.

Each one in ordinary language, then in Spinoza’s own words, then what it looks like in a life and one thing to try.

1. 01Nothing just happens.
2. 02God is Nature.
3. 03Free will is a feeling, not a fact.
4. 04Mind and body are one thing.
5. 05Feelings are your power going up or down.
6. 06Knowing better is not enough.
7. 07Understand a feeling, and it loosens its grip.
8. 08Hope and fear are one trap.
9. 09Other people are the best thing in the world.
10. 10Joy is the point.

1. 01

   Nothing just happens.

   Every event has causes, and those causes have causes. Luck, fate and “out of nowhere” are names for causes we have not found yet. This is the foundation of everything else Spinoza says.

   “From a given definite cause an effect necessarily follows” Part I, Axiom 3

   Looks like

   Your phone “randomly” died. You also used maps all day, in the cold, on a two-year-old battery.

   Try it

   Next time you say “out of nowhere” stop and find three causes.

2. 02

   God is Nature.

   Spinoza’s God is not a person in the sky who makes deals, keeps score or gets angry. It is reality itself: everything that exists and the laws it follows. You are not watching nature from outside. You are a piece of it.

   He speaks of “the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature” Preface to Part IV

   Looks like

   A storm is not a punishment and a promotion is not a reward from above. Both are nature doing what nature does.

   Try it

   When something big happens, swap “why me?” for “what caused this?”

3. 03

   Free will is a feeling, not a fact.

   You feel free because you notice your choices but not what caused them. That is not bad news. When you stop imagining people as uncaused, blame and shame shrink, and curiosity takes their place.

   “men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are conditioned.” E2p35 note

   Looks like

   You “decided” to eat the cookie. It was 4 p.m. you were tired, and the cookie was on your desk.

   Try it

   After “I chose to” add “because…” three times.

4. 04

   Mind and body are one thing.

   You are not a ghost driving a machine. Your mind is your body felt from the inside, so whatever happens to one happens to the other.

   “mind and body are one and the same thing” E3p2 note

   Looks like

   The day your whole life felt hopeless was also the day you slept four hours and skipped lunch.

   Try it

   Before deciding anything big feels hopeless: eat, sleep, walk. Then decide.

5. 05

   Feelings are your power going up or down.

   Everything pushes to keep going and grow stronger. Spinoza calls that push the conatus. Joy is the feeling of it rising, sadness the feeling of it falling. He builds every emotion he names out of three: desire, joy and sadness. Love is joy plus the idea of what caused it. Hate is sadness plus its cause.

   “Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavours to persist in its own being.” E3p6 And: “Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection.” Definitions of the Emotions II (Elwes says “pleasure” and “pain” for joy and sadness.)

   Looks like

   A compliment: power up. An unanswered message: power down. You felt both before you thought about either.

   Try it

   Tonight, mark the day’s big moments with an up or a down arrow. Notice what they have in common.

6. 06

   Knowing better is not enough.

   You can know exactly what is good for you and still do the other thing. A feeling is not beaten by a fact; it is beaten by a stronger feeling. So stop arguing with yourself and change what you feel.

   “he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.” Preface to Part IV Because: “An emotion can only be controlled or destroyed by another emotion contrary thereto, and with more power for controlling emotion.” E4p7

   Looks like

   You know you should go to bed. You scroll for another hour.

   Try it

   Don’t fight with a rule. Put something you love more than the phone by the bed, and the phone in another room.

7. 07

   Understand a feeling, and it loosens its grip.

   This is Spinoza’s great practical discovery. When you see clearly what a feeling is and what caused it, it stops being something that happens to you and becomes something you understand. That is where your power comes back.

   “An emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof.” E5p3

   Looks like

   “I’m furious at my brother” becomes “I’m exhausted, he sounded like Dad, and I’m scared about money.” The anger gets smaller as the picture gets bigger.

   Try it

   Name the feeling, trace three causes, and say them out loud. The practice below walks you through it.

8. 08

   Hope and fear are one trap.

   Hope and fear are the same swing. Both come from not knowing how something will turn out, so living on hope means living on fear as well. The way out is not despair. It is understanding and planning what you can, and accepting what you cannot.

   “there is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.” Definitions of the Emotions XIII

   Looks like

   Refreshing your email forty times for the job offer, happy one minute and sick the next.

   Try it

   Turn one worry into one action you can take today. Let the rest wait.

9. 09

   Other people are the best thing in the world.

   Nothing helps a person more than another person living sensibly. Hatred always makes you smaller. Answering hostility with understanding and kindness is not weakness; it is the stronger move.

   “There is no individual thing in nature, which is more useful to man, than a man who lives in obedience to reason.” E4p35 cor. 1 And: “He who chooses to avenge wrongs with hatred is assuredly wretched.” E4p46 note

   Looks like

   The rude person on the support line has been shouted at all day, for low pay, by a script they did not write.

   Try it

   When someone is rude, get curious about their causes before you reply.

10. 10

    Joy is the point.

    Spinoza is not a gloomy rule-giver. Joy is good in itself and sadness is bad in itself. Good food, music, plants, clothes, sport and theatre are part of a wise life. And happiness is not a prize for being good later; it is being fully alive and understanding now.

    “it is the part of a wise man to refresh and recreate himself with moderate and pleasant food and drink, and also with perfumes, with the soft beauty of growing plants, with dress, with music, with many sports, with theatres” E4p45 note. “A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.” E4p67

    Looks like

    Putting off every pleasure until the goal is reached, then finding the goal did not feel like much.

    Try it

    Do one thing today purely because it makes you more alive.

Decoder

Ten words you will meet.

Conatus

The push every thing has to keep going and grow stronger. In you, it is your very essence.

Affect

Any feeling that changes your power to act. Spinoza lists forty-eight; you can explore them in Spinoza’s Mirror.

Joy and sadness

Your power going up, and your power going down. Old translations say “pleasure” and “pain”.

Passion

A feeling caused mostly from outside you, that you do not yet understand. You are on the receiving end.

Action

What follows from your own nature and understanding. You are the cause.

Adequate idea

Understanding something through its real causes.

Inadequate idea

Seeing an effect without its causes. A fragment mistaken for the whole.

God or Nature

Everything that exists, and the laws it follows. Not a person who chooses.

The free person

Someone led by understanding rather than by passions. Not someone without causes.

Blessedness

The deep, steady joy of understanding yourself and the world. Spinoza’s word for the best life.

Putting it to work

Spinoza on an ordinary day.

Nine moments most people meet by Friday, the reaction that comes first, and the move Spinoza would make instead.

1. 6:45 a.m.

   You wake up with a knot of dread about the day.

   The usual reactionAssume the dread is telling you something true about the day.

   The Spinoza moveBody first. Mind and body are one thing, so a tired, hungry body produces a dreading mind. Water, food, light, a short walk. Then look at the day again. E3p2 note

2. 8:10 a.m.

   Someone cuts you off in traffic.

   The usual reactionRage at the idiot who did it on purpose.

   The Spinoza moveSee the causes: late, distracted, maybe scared. The more you see someone as caused, the less you hate them. You still brake; you just do not carry it all morning. E3p49

3. 9:30 a.m.

   Your boss criticises your work in front of others.

   The usual reactionShame, then a rehearsed comeback in the shower for a week.

   The Spinoza moveName it: shame, sadness about an act you imagine others blame. Separate what was said about the work from the story about you. Take the useful part; leave the audience. Definitions of the Emotions XXXI

4. 12:15 p.m.

   Scrolling at lunch, a friend’s holiday photos sting.

   The usual reactionEnvy, dressed up as ambition.

   The Spinoza moveYou are comparing your inside with their edited outside. Their good fortune takes nothing from your power. If they have something you truly need, learn how they got it. Definitions of the Emotions XXIII

5. 3:00 p.m.

   You have been avoiding one task all afternoon.

   The usual reaction“I’m lazy.”

   The Spinoza moveYou are not lazy; something else is pulling harder. Change the causes instead of shouting at yourself: make the first step tiny, close every other tab, start a timer. E4p7

6. 6:30 p.m.

   An argument at home over something small.

   The usual reactionWin it.

   The Spinoza moveThe small thing is standing in for a big feeling, often tiredness. Answer hostility with generosity; it wins more than returning fire ever does. E4p46

7. 8:00 p.m.

   You buy something you did not need.

   The usual reaction“I really wanted it, so it must be good.”

   The Spinoza moveSpinoza caught this backwards logic: we call things good because we want them, not the other way round. Put a day between the wanting and the buying. E3p9 note

8. 10:30 p.m.

   Lying awake replaying a mistake from work.

   The usual reactionPunish yourself until it feels like justice.

   The Spinoza moveRegret adds a second wound to the first. Your past self acted from the causes it had. Understand the mistake, write the fix for tomorrow, and let the understanding do what the regret pretends to. E4p54

9. 11:15 p.m.

   Worrying about something that may happen next month.

   The usual reactionRehearse every bad ending.

   The Spinoza moveFear is doubt about the future. Write one thing you can do about it. For the rest, see it as part of the order of things, not a threat aimed at you. Understanding necessity quiets the mind. E5p6

Common mix-ups

What Spinoza does not mean.

“Everything is caused, so why bother?”

Your effort is one of the causes. Understanding changes what you do next, which changes what happens. Seeing causes is not giving up; it is finding the levers.

“Understand your feelings, so feel nothing.”

The opposite. Understanding turns a passion you suffer into an action you do. Joy stays, and grows. Spinoza is openly for laughter, music and good food.

“Seek your own advantage, so be selfish.”

Your real advantage includes other people. Nothing is more useful to a person than another person living sensibly, so the more wisely you seek your own good, the more useful you are to everyone else.

“God is Nature, so he was simply an atheist.”

Readers still argue about this, honestly. He called it God and meant something by it. What he denied was a God who chooses, judges, rewards or punishes.

Start here

A week with Spinoza.

Seven small experiments, one a day. Tick them off as you go; your ticks stay in this browser.

1. MondayCause-spottingWhenever something annoys you, find three causes before you react.
2. TuesdayBody firstBefore any hard conversation or decision: water, food, a short walk.
3. WednesdayUp or downLabel each strong feeling as power going up or power going down.
4. ThursdayNo-blame dayReplace every “should have” yours or anyone’s, with “because…”
5. FridayEnvy fastEach time you compare, say: their good takes nothing from me.
6. SaturdayGenerosityAnswer one irritation with kindness instead of a comeback.
7. SundayJoy auditList what made you more alive this week, and plan more of it.