Like Burroughs, Spinoza shows that, far from being an aberrant condition, addiction is the standard state for human beings, who are habitually enslaved into reactive and repetitive behaviors by frozen images of themselves and the world. Freedom, Spinoza shows, is something can be achieved only when we can apprehend the real causes of our actions, when we can set aside the 'sad passions' that intoxicate and entrance us.

• gurdjieff
• the fourth way
• being
• addiction
• habit
• behavior
• action
• passion
• spinoza
• awakening
• identification
• buffers
• though
• sleep