entertainment

He seems to have had a friendly, even intimate relationship with his landlord’s family... Spinoza apparently spent a good deal of time in his room, working on either his lenses or his writing, or perhaps just reading. “When he was at home, he was troublesome to no one . . . When he tired of his investigations, he came down and spoke with his house companions on whatever was going on, even about trivial matters.” For diversion, he liked to collect spiders and have them fight each other, or throw flies into their webs, creating battles, which so entertained him “that he would break out laughing.” 

Steven Nadler, Spinoza's Ethics, An Introduction, 22