Good Morning Everyone! Happy Hump Day! The week is flying by. Christmas Eve is a week from today and we’re all pushing through.

Today, for our main course, we’re going to hand the mic over to Baruch Spinoza who says that desire is ingrained in who we are. To burn that off, we’ll do something called the Power Check. To finish it off in the Book Nook, we’ll open up Spinoza’s Ethics, Part III.

Our plates are full, so let’s dive in. Thought Breakfast is served!

Over the past two days, we’ve framed desire as lack and conditioning, respectively. Today, we’re taking a radical shift. Rather than considering desire as something that happens to us, we’ll see it as something we are. Plato framed desire as pointing to absence. Schopenhauer framed it as a trap in repetition. Spinoza frames desire as the engine of existence itself.

In Ethics, Spinoza defines the concept of conatus (Latin for “striving” or “effort”). Every being strives to persist in its own being. Desire is when this persistent striving becomes conscious. So rather than a simple craving or lack, desire becomes power-in-motion. This flips the moral framing that we’ve used so far. Now we don’t see ourselves as having desire because something is missing, but we desire because life is actively expressing itself through us.

Spinoza splits desire into two forms: active and passive. Active desire arises from understanding, alignment, and clarity. Passive desire arises from external stimuli, conditioning, and fear. Schopenhauer showed us the loop of desire, but Spinoza prompts us to ask: “Are we driven, or are we driving?” Desire then becomes a question of agency. Is our desire increasing our capacity to act? Or is it reducing us to our reactions?

For Spinoza, emotions are not moral failures. Emotions signal changes in power. For example, joy signals an increase in power and sadness signals a decrease. Therefore, desire that’s aligned with joy strengthens us while desires rooted in fear or resentment weaken us. Nietzsche has a similar idea, saying that suppressed desires never disappear but turn inward.

The central question here is not “Should I desire this?” but “Does this desire increase my power to live clearly, freely, and fully?” By asking this question, desire isn’t indulged blindly or moralized into shame, but aimed towards taking ownership of your life.

Identify a desire of yours, big or small.

Ask yourself:

The framing comes from Spinoza’s idea that desire is not to be judged, but evaluated by its effect on vitality.

“Each thing, insofar as it is in itself, strives to persevere in its being. This striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing itself.”
- Spinoza, Ethics, Part III, Propositions 6-7

Spinoza rationalizes desire by saying that the prime concern of every being is simply to continue being. Desire as a whole is rooted in the innate longing for continued existence. He spins this to say that desire is power, not deficiency. Desire, then, is life asserting itself. Rather than viewing desire as psychological weakness, Spinoza frames it as an ontological matter; concerning the metaphysical nature of being.

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast