Acedia

[Nigel E. Richardson]

>Acedia means literally listlessness. It's akin to accidie from the latin 
>acedia and greek, akedia.
>
>grip (You need abetter dictionary!) :)

Here's Dorothy L Sayer on "acedie" from her commentaries on Dante's Divine 
Comedy. (Purgatory: Canto XVIII - Cornice IV: The Slothful.)

"The sin that in English is commonly called Sloth, and in Latin accidia 
(or more correctly acedia) is insidious and assumes such Protean shapes 
that it is rather difficult to define. It is not merely idleness of mind 
and laziness of body; it is that whole poisoning of the will which, 
beginning with indiference and an attitude of 'I couldn't care less', 
extends to the deliberate refusal of joy and culminates in morbid 
introspection and despair. One form of it which appeals very strongly to 
some modern minds is that acquiescence in evil and error which readily 
defines itself as 'Tolerance'; another is that refusal to be moved by the 
contemplation of the good and beautiful which is known as 
'Disillusionment', and sometimes as 'knowledge of the world'; yet another 
is that withdrawal into an 'ivory tower' of Isolation which is the 
peculiar temptation of the artist and contemplative, and is popularly 
called 'Escapism'.
   (The Divine Comedy: 2 - Purgatory, 1955 Penguin edition, p. 209)

Written a long time before they invented Prozac....


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