The Ancient Greeks Had a Word for the Specific Kind of Bad You're Feeling Right Now

[Newest Reality]

Listless and unable to motivate yourself to get your work and other things done? That's 'acedia.'

<snip>

Bringing back "acedia"

Acedia might be a new word to us in the 21st century, but it was well known to those living in the Middle Ages. Derived from Greek roots that mean a seizing up or freezing of feelings, the experience was apparently fairly common among Medieval monks shut away in monasteries.

One fifth-century theologian described one who suffers from acedia as "horrified at where he is, disgusted with his room ... It does not allow him to stay still in his cell or to devote any effort to reading." He confronts "bodily listlessness and yawning hunger as though he were worn by a long journey or a prolonged fast ... Next he glances about and sighs that no one is coming to see him. Constantly in and out of his cell, he looks at the sun as if it were too slow in setting."

Sound familiar? Monks and moderns might be stuck at home for very different reasons, but the human response to enforced immobility seems to be constant. For centuries, lockdowns have been making us exhausted and unable to motivate ourselves to do work that's sitting right in front of us.

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/productivity-motivation-northwestern-acedia.html

[zentrum]

1. Fascinating. Thank you.

[Newest Reality]

3. You're Welcome!

I agree.

The idea of emotional granularity and being able to more accurately label our emotions makes sense and could be very helpful in order to help us generate and achieve appropriate responses.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Guess it sounds better than "malaise"...

[Clash City Rocker]

5. Or "ennui"

[Leith]

4. Yeah, well acquainted with the feeling

That's been the last 5 months in my house.

[fierywoman]

6. Is this what provoked the verses used by Orff in Carmina Burana? great word btw.

[Chainfire]

7. 'ya gotta ask yourself

What did monks think it was going to be like?

[CTyankee]

8. I continue to research and write my book. I can do lots of rewrites and rethinks.

I got a lot of books off Amazon and those and the Internet have been my invaluable sources. I have no deadlines as I am self publishing. So generally I am happy with that. But I miss visiting my kids and grandkids. I shop for food and take care of a partially handicapped husband. We are managing.

[kairos12]

9. Don't know that one, but

I know asshole-cedia. That's where I am motivated to toss my gin through the Teevee every time I see Hairplug Himmler.

[BarbD]

10. So that's what I'm suffering from.

And, voting is the cure. Only two months until we will be freed from this madness.

[Pluvious]

12. Actually, the next phase will begin...

It will make the Bush/Gore recount period look like a minor clerical error.

Then will come the pardons for cash.

The riots by the Incel Infantry and Proud Bois will burn the cities.

Then the Orange BLOTUS and entourage will take flight to Moscow.

Then the investigations and trials will begin.

Oh, and the rushed vaccinations will begin to manifest the side effects.

And Covid infections will pass the 10 million mark.

I need a drink.

[BannonsLiver]

13. ...

[lagomorph777]

14. Yes - but throw in a heavy burden of sheer terror - as if the Huns are thundering over the hilltops.