Sloth vs. Diligence: Death Match!

Sloth: Disinclination to work or exert oneself; sluggishness; indolence; laziness.


Diligence: Persevering and careful in work; hardworking.

Sloth comes from the Greek acedia meaning to neglect to take care of something that one should take care of. It infers apathetic listlessness or depression without joy.

I like the implications here. I always understood sloth to mean simple laziness. That's a big part of sloth, no doubt, but I can also see that there's a lot of nuance to being impressively slothful. It's a many-tentacled defect; there are a lot of nooks and crannies to explore.

How do I sloth thee? Let me count the ways.

Being lazy sounds like a reasonable thing to be from time to time. I can see having a long week, feeling a little worn out or run down, and taking it easy for a day or two. Sluggishness, on the other hand, doesn't sound as socially acceptable. It sounds like what happens after you eat an entire large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, and then what happens to your plumbing. I can't see myself saying: "What am I going to do today? I think today is going to be all about joyless depression."

It seems that you should be able to turn your motor off and idle in one spot for a while without being called lazy. This is not intuitive for me. I have a need to be Productive! I think that I should always be Accomplishing Something! I think that I can sit quietly with myself and contemplate life or god or my navel and not be lazy. I think that I can rush around in a non-lazy whirlwind and lose my spirituality.

Every now and then someone that I'm talking to about doing some work on their recovery will toss out this excuse: "I guess I'm just lazy."

"No," I say. "You just don't want to do the work." There's a big difference. I rarely meet lazy people in The Fellowship. Most of us are in constant motion. We succeed and we get a lot done. We aren't lazy -- we're willfully contrary. We don't do things because we don't want to, not because we can't stir up enough energy.

Sloth is a failure to use my talents -- such as they are, should I be able to find any -- to the best of my ability. It implies a willful refusal to enjoy the goodness of god and the world that god created.

I have so little idea what I'm talking about most of the time.