The dead will

The old word for it is acedia. Today we say apathy, a dead will, “I can’t be bothered”. John Climacus describes it as weakness of mind and a cooling towards everything you once wanted, along with constant praise of other people’s lives as better. And he gives an image that stays with you: the doctor visits the sick in the morning, but acedia comes around noon, when the day is half gone and strength is spent.

He considers it the heaviest of the chief passions. Every other one is pushed back by some virtue, but this one scatters everything at once. You recognise it when everything is the same and nothing gives joy, when the important is put off and the trivial is done, and by one strange regularity: before a duty you are seized by tiredness and a headache, but when lunch comes you are wide awake.

John also notices a cunning trick. Acedia does not always pull you towards the bad, but towards another good. When you should pray or work, it reminds you of an important call, of someone who needs help, of a job that “can’t wait”. Anything, so long as you do not do what is yours right now.

The remedy is not a big plan, but a small finished task. When “I can’t be bothered” appears, call it by its name: this is the dead will, not the truth about my life. Then do not lie there thinking; get up and do something with your hands. A short prayer, then work, then prayer again: that is John’s main remedy. Choose the smallest thing you can finish in ten minutes, and finish it.

The will comes after the deed, not before.

John counts excessive work among the parents of acedia. Whoever works beyond his strength suffers not from laziness but from exhaustion, and there the remedy is rest, not the whip. In the same way, the urge to change everything at once, job, city, life, is often a child of this state. Wait for the wave to pass before you decide. And do not shut yourself away: solitude is the companion of the dead will, and people are its opponents.

A warning stands beside this rung. If the apathy lasts for weeks, with sleeplessness, loss of appetite and thoughts that life has no point, it is no longer only a spiritual struggle. See a doctor and tell someone close to you. That too is a step on the ladder.

The sign that you have climbed: when a grey day comes, you still do what is yours today. You do not expect it always to be pleasant, but even on grey days you go forward.

The question remains: why does the will fall asleep before a duty, and wake up before a meal?

N. Ž.