Augustine · Deep Essay · Chapter 05
Augustine for Today: Drawing a Map of Love
What might it mean now to follow emotion back toward the loves that organize a life?
The short answer
A reflective practice asks not only ‘How do I stop feeling this?’ but ‘What does this feeling say I cannot bear to lose?’ The answer sketches a map of attachments that can be affirmed, revised, or released.
Read more deeply
An emotion journal can record event, feeling, bodily response, feared loss, and desired good. Envy might reveal that another person's achievement has become the measure of one's worth. Grief may show the irreplaceable place of a relationship. Anger may expose devotion to justice mixed with the hunger to dominate.
The point is neither self-exposure nor endless blame. Augustine's confessional stance combines responsibility with the admission that self-knowledge is incomplete and change requires help. A map of love is useful when it guides a next act of repair, gratitude, boundary, or renewed attention.
Context and caution
Recognizing an attachment does not prove that it is wrong, and self-examination should not become compulsive self-surveillance. Compassion and trusted relationships are part of the practice.
Primary-source guide
Primary guide: Confessions I, VIII, and X; City of God XIV.6–9.
Pathos Editorial · Reviewed 2026-09-12