Panicking? Here’s a little old-school philosophy to chill you out
(This article is a remix of Spinoza: Philosophy I’m The Time of Covid-19)
We all know what’s happening. A pandemic is surging through the human community bringing fear, anxiety, sadness, and anger.
So what to do?
Have you heard of the philosopher Spinoza? He was a rebel, political theorist and moral psychologist around 200 years ago. Spinoza thought negative feelings were dangerous-both to you and to society overall. His advice is helpful in the days of Covid-19.
Use Reason aka Think Logically
Spinoza wrote that there is no difference between individual and communal benefit. When people are guided by reason, their power of positive thought and action increases. When reasonable people act together, their power is magnified- it’s an echo chamber but in a good way.
In other words, What’s good for me? To think clearly and to team up with others.
This crisis is making it so clear, right? Everyone’s well-being — socially, economically, and medically- depends on all of us being guided by reason and acting for the common good.
This means:
1. Seek reliable sources of information on how to protect ourselves
2. Follow those guidelines, not ones generated by our racing emotions
3. Look for ways to help each other.
This will be tricky, however, if we can’t manage our emotions.
Managing Feelings
Spinoza has two helpful insights about managing Big Feelings.
- Feelings that increase our clarity of thought and our wellbeing and power should be encouraged;
- Feelings that increase confusion and weaken our power and wellbeing should be discouraged.
The king of the feelings in the first, good category is joy.
As Spinoza put it, joy is the passage to a greater perfection. If you think that acting on fear, anxiety, and negativity is a good thing… guess what? You’re wrong. The best thing we can do, weirdly, is to embrace joy. The Italians who were singing from their balconies had it right according to Spinoza.
It’s tempting to hunker down on Twitter or Whatsapp magnifying each other’s fear, sadness, and anger. Though this may offer some comfort, these emotions hinder our ability to think clearly and quite literally weaken us, including physically- studies have shown these emotions are bad for the immune system.
You can literally feel it: after a few minutes the hangover hits.
Friends: Please notice the hangover.
What we need to give to each other right now is strength, love, solidarity, and reason.
Here’s another, related thing that Spinoza said: Things can’t be other than what they are.
In each moment, try to make the best decision you can. In hindsight though: please understand that you could not have done anything differently — you are always literally doing your best.
Nice right? Doesn’t that already make you feel less guilty? It lifts those woulda shoulda couldas right off our shoulders.
In each moment we should act as rationally as we can, but also look back knowing that we are always acting within a complicated web of causes. In the moment that was the best decision you could have made.
See the connection? The guilt over being unreasonable is disempowering and causes other bad feelings, like shame and anxiety, which leads to guilt, which leads to other bad feelings… you get the idea.
At a time like this when emotions run high and guilt, blame and anger commonly flare up and become toxic, Spinoza’s advice can help us turn our attention where it should be and away from where it shouldn’t.
Friends, please listen to Spinoza:
Think clearly and logically. When you can’t, forgive yourself.
When others can’t, because they’re too busy buying toilet paper or bailing out Big Oil instead of Little People- understand that they couldn’t be acting any other way. They too are doing their best based on what they know and are capable of feeling at that moment.
That doesn’t mean you don’t try to spread better info about toilet paper, or Face Masks, or social distancing, or taking care of laid-off people in the service industry with no social safety net.
It’s exactly the opposite- you try to act rationally and share information and resources. You team up with others. You just leave the toxic emotions behind.
Sound difficult? It is. As Spinoza said, everything noble is as excellent as it is rare.
We won’t be perfect — Spinoza himself said perfection is impossible for human beings — but whatever freedom and peace we get ahold of and share with others will spread that much more goodness in hard times.
