7: Is it Depression or Acedia?
Are you suffering from depression?
Or are you dealing with it’s lesser known twin.
Crisis comes across multiple stages of life. You may be worried everyday about what you are doing with you life, you procrastinate whatever you want to do, and end up doing nothing anyways. I will be prepared for my work at the start of everyday, meetings with my clients, answering emails etc.
“Anyway, I will end up doing none of it. I do not do any of the work, just spend time on Netflix and regret it later. I want to develop myself spiritually and physically. But, I never manage to do any of that too. This is my everyday pattern of self-destruction rather than construction. I go into a spiral of negativity and it goes on forever. I think I am in depression.
This was the conversation that we most heard repeated when taken a consensus of 20-30 year olds.
Well, good news for anyone going through this phase of life. Be assured but, you are not suffering from depression. The midday demon - Acedia, was coined by monks in the 4th century, such has been its existence.
Acedia was one of the most severe problems that is out there today because of the despair and absolute disdain for life it produced in a human being. It’s a shame the word has been lost to ancient textbooks and is no longer used, because acedia’s effects carry far more weight in today’s cultural environment.
In Kathleen Norris’s book, Acedia &me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life. In the book she quotes a monk who states:
“The demon of acedia — also called the noonday demon — is the one that
causes the most serious trouble of all…He makes it seem that the sun
barely moves, if at all, and…he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred
for the place, a hatred for his very life itself.”
Or are you dealing with it’s lesser known twin.
Crisis comes across multiple stages of life. You may be worried everyday about what you are doing with you life, you procrastinate whatever you want to do, and end up doing nothing anyways. I will be prepared for my work at the start of everyday, meetings with my clients, answering emails etc.
“Anyway, I will end up doing none of it. I do not do any of the work, just spend time on Netflix and regret it later. I want to develop myself spiritually and physically. But, I never manage to do any of that too. This is my everyday pattern of self-destruction rather than construction. I go into a spiral of negativity and it goes on forever. I think I am in depression.
This was the conversation that we most heard repeated when taken a consensus of 20-30 year olds.
Well, good news for anyone going through this phase of life. Be assured but, you are not suffering from depression. The midday demon - Acedia, was coined by monks in the 4th century, such has been its existence.
Acedia was one of the most severe problems that is out there today because of the despair and absolute disdain for life it produced in a human being. It’s a shame the word has been lost to ancient textbooks and is no longer used, because acedia’s effects carry far more weight in today’s cultural environment.
In Kathleen Norris’s book, Acedia &me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life. In the book she quotes a monk who states:
“The demon of acedia — also called the noonday demon — is the one that
causes the most serious trouble of all…He makes it seem that the sun
barely moves, if at all, and…he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred
for the place, a hatred for his very life itself.”
