Acedia

A friend asked me the other day why so many married women spend so much time badmouthing their spouses. Why? In a word, acedia.

Dubbed the “primary affliction of his time” by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), the word (uh-SEE-dee-uh) comes from the Greek word for indifference, but it goes a bit deeper than that. It is not just a lack of caring, but not caring that you don’t care anymore. Whether it’s about life, your job, your spouse, your family, anything and everything, life in general.

Acedia is the spiritual version of sloth. But that’s not to say it’s characterized by laziness as related to physical activity. Acedia sufferers may be the busiest people you know, restless, agitated, involved in everything. Or they may be paralyzed and lethargic. It works both ways. Either way, there’s no passion. If they are busy all the time, it’s to keep from having to face how empty they feel. Likewise, sluggishness may be the preferred method of ignoring their sense of life’s meaninglessness.

Remember when you were younger and everything thrilled you? The touch of you lover’s hand on your shoulder, the taste of strawberry ice cream, a flock of geese gliding overhead, a full moon shimmering on the ocean. Or when everything was a tragedy? The wrong date or no date for prom. Getting passed over for a promotion. A spat with your spouse.

But as we age, we may seek to control the ride. We turn down every emotion, sacrificing the highs so that we can escape the lows. Taken to the extreme, this becomes acedia. We lose our passion for life. We may realize this, but rather than take responsibility, we blame our circumstances, thinking that if we could just change our job or spouse or family, we could get rid of this empty feeling.

For those whose acedia manifests in an active form, they may have extramarital affairs or be job-hoppers or workaholics, always looking for the perfect fix and changing every variable except the one constant – themselves. For those suffering from the lethargic manifestation of acedia, they complain and criticize. We’ve probably all encountered these people in the workplace – some of us may be those people. In marriage, this may show up as nearly constant verbal sparring.

So I come back to my friend’s question. Why do spouses verbally abuse one another? This is especially uncomfortable when they make it a spectator sport in your presence. They don’t care, and they don’t care that they don’t care. The spark has gone, yet no matter how hard they have tried to kill emotion, as human beings, we long for passion. In its absence, we grasp at anything that helps us realize we are still alive, even when that means attacking, fighting, and destroying those closest to us.

When faced with a life sentence or long incarceration, prisoners may adapt in several ways. Having lost their freedom, they become dependent on the structures of the institution. They may lose the ability to take action on their own and to make good decisions. Because prison can be a dangerous place, they become hyper-vigilant, distrustful and suspicious. In response, they may psychologically distance themselves from others, create a “prison-mask” so that their weaknesses cannot be exposed and exploited. At the same time, they may in turn exploit others, perhaps a response to their feelings of low self-esteem and lack of personal worth.

Hmm…sound familiar? Acedia-sufferers often perceive their marriages and jobs as life sentences, one day the same as the next, death the only way out. Is it surprising then that these same behaviors identified with prison inmates often show up at home and at work? Whether by a prison, a marriage or a corporation, institutionalization can occur and, when it does, it is devastating. The dignity, self-worth and uniqueness of a human being is lost. A modern tragedy rarely noticed.

Self-check moment. Do most of the words coming from your mouth build up or tear down? Is your internal temperature mostly negative or mostly positive? Are you happy or unhappy most of the time? Do you have the power to change yourself or are you just the way you are? Does life – your life – have meaning? Or does existence on planet earth lack any significance?

Your answers to these questions aren’t just philosophical speculation. They are the foundation of your life creating the feelings you feel, the things you do and don’t do, the relationships you have, the love you give and receive, the joy you experience. If your answers no longer work for you, the search for new ones is waiting.