system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Reading 'Sophie's World' and struggling with a certain part, please help

Here's is the part I'm struggling with - 

>Spinoza said that it was our passions -such as ambition and lust- which prevent us from achieving true happiness and harmony...

then a few lines later the narrator says when further explaining Spinoza's belief

>The goal is to comprehend everything that exists in an all-embracing perception. Only then will we achieve true happiness and contentment.

So I'm lost at this point. I want to have a better future for myself and retrain my mind, but to do this I'm actively lusting and working towards a better future for myself. I'm lusting towards a better ability to reason, and to make better decisions. I'm using ambition to read/study more, and to work towards a future where I understand more, and as a result find more peace.

So, I'm confused here. It seems like what's being said here counters itself. Am I working against my ability to find happiness/contentment one day by lusting/working towards further understanding?
gpt
It seems to me that your understanding of the terms lust and ambition are just not the same as how Spinoza uses them. This is from part 3 of Spinoza's Ethics, where he systematically defines emotions:

>[The] endeavor to do actions and also to omit doing them simply in order to please people is called ambition, especially when we make such an immense endeavor to please the crowd that as a result we do or omit to do actions to our own or someone else's detriment.

>By gluttony, drunkenness, lust, avarice and ambition we mean simply an immoderate desire of food, drink, sex, wealth and glory.

He doesn't say that any endeavor whatsoever is bad, and in fact your desire to further your understanding is precisely what he advocates for:

>In life therefore it is useful above all things to perfect the intellect or reason as much as we can, and the highest happiness or blessedness consists in this alone... the ultimate purpose of a human being who is led by reason, i.e. the highest desire by which he strives to govern all others, is the desire by which he is led to an adequate conception of himself and of everything that can fall under his understanding. There is therefore no life worth living without understanding, and things are good only insofar as they assist a person to enjoy the life of the mind, which is defined by understanding.