Among people who are enamoured of the idea of free will – “You can do anything you set your mind to!” and similar platitudes – determinism can seem like a bleak and defeatist doctrine. And yet, approached with an open heart, it is anything but bleak. As Robert Flix writes (Spinoza in Plain English: Understanding Determinism, Freedom, and Joy pp.48-49):

Spinoza insists this is exactly where true freedom lies. Freedom is not breaking the rules of necessity (impossible), but understanding them so deeply that you stop being dragged by them. The more you know about why you feel envy, why you feel fear, why you lash out, the less they control you. Knowledge is emancipation. That’s why

Spinoza’s “blessed life” isn’t about divine rewards, heavenly mansions, or even worldly success. It’s about serenity. It’s about looking at the chain of causes that binds you, recognizing it for what it is, and saying: Yes, this is necessary, and I am part of it.

The payoff is what he called the intellectual love of God — that calm joy in knowing you’re not an outsider to reality but an expression of it. You stop demanding that the universe care about you and start rejoicing that you belong to it completely. It’s not self-help in the modern sense — no ten steps to a better career, no quick hacks for mindfulness. It’s more radical: stop fighting necessity, and call that surrender joy.

To realise this joy in each breath, each flicker of changing light, each chirp from the sparrows hidden in the dry autumn leaves of the beech hedge, is exactly the “blessed life” of which Spinoza wrote. It really is that simple, if only we can sit still enough to see.