Name What You Feel
An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof.
Spinoza wrote this in Part V of the Ethics, the section on human freedom, after years of grinding lenses alone in Amsterdam following his excommunication from the Jewish community for his radical ideas. Cut off from his old life, he had every reason to nurse resentment, yet he built a philosophy arguing that suffering loses its hold once we understand its causes. For him, a passion like anger or fear only controls us while it remains vague and unexamined. The moment we see it clearly, trace its source, and name it precisely, it stops driving us and becomes something we can work with.
Reflection
Spinoza argued that naming a feeling clearly weakens its grip on us. What emotion can I name clearly this morning?