ACEDIA: The Eighth Bad Thought: A Conversation with Kathleen Norris

Years ago, S&H's poetry editor and bestselling author Kathleen Norris mentioned wanting to write an article on sloth. It never came to pass. Now we know why: She was immersed in what became a 20-year project - a masterpiece of a book: part memoir, part history about a little-known but much-suffered malady. The book, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, is making its debut this month from Riverhead Books. (See the review here.) On first reading the title, we, like most readers, wanted to know, what is acedia?

KATHLEEN NORRIS: I think of acedia as the spiritual aspect of sloth. The word literally means "not caring," or being unable to care, and, ultimately, being unable to care that you can't care. Acedia is spiritual morphine, but it does more than mask pain. It causes us to lose faith in ourselves and in our relationships with others.

WHY IS IT SO LITTLE KNOWN TODAY?
KN: In the fourth century, the early Christian monks regarded acedia as one of the worst of the "eight bad thoughts" that plagued a monk trying to live and pray in peace. Acedia was right up there with anger and pride. Over the next few centuries, however, as the "eight bad thoughts" evolved into what the church came to define as the "seven deadly sins," acedia was subsumed into the sin of sloth. And as sloth became associated more with physical laziness, we lost the sense of acedia as a deadly spiritual affliction.
Also, for centuries people believed that only monastic people, who were deliberately pursuing a disciplined ascetic life, would suffer from acedia, growing bored with the daily routine and ultimately so discouraged that they could no longer care about what had drawn them to monastic life in the first place.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO WRITE AN ENTIRE BOOK ABOUT ACEDIA AND ITS EFFECTS IN YOUR LIFE?
KN: This is a book that chose me, in one of those experiences that reminds me why writers keep writing and readers keep reading. About 25 years ago, when I first discovered the monastic tradition, I found mention of acedia in a book written in the fourth century by a monk named Evagrius. He was describing something I had felt for years but had never been able to name. This led me to explore the subject of acedia, and I began collecting articles about it, even as I worked on my first nonfiction book, Dakota. Acedia made a brief appearance in my next book, The Cloister Walk, but I felt it needed a book of its own. The early Christian monks taught that every person has a primary temptation, or "bad thought," that is likely to cause trouble in one's life. This makes sense to me. When I start to go off track, acedia is usually the root cause of the problem.

HOW DO YOU SEE ACEDIA MANIFEST NOT ONLY IN THE LIVES OF INDIVIDUALS BUT ALSO IN OUR CULTURE AS A WHOLE?
KN: One reason I wrote this book was to explore my suspicion that much of the restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia, and enervating despair that plague us today are the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress. When we look at acedia's root meaning - not caring - we can see it as a social problem and perceive that the sloth it engenders is anything but an insignificant physical laziness. It may even manifest as hyperactivity, but it is more like the activity of a hamster on a treadmill than the action that will enhance the common good.
I was very glad to find the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein's observation that "When you achieve true slothdom, you have no desire for the world to change. True sloths are not revolutionaries," she adds, but "the lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo." The question she raises is one I think we have to ask ourselves: "Are these hyperscheduled, overactive individuals really creating anything new? Are they guilty of passion in any way? Do they have a new vision for their government? For their community? Or for themselves?" She suspects that "Their purpose is to keep themselves so busy, so entrenched in their active lives, that their spirit reaches a permanent state of lethargiosis." Lethargy, acedia: in some ways I think they define American culture today. The plethora of 24-hour news sources are perfect carriers of the disease. We can no longer distinguish between what is important and what is not, and discern what we truly need to care about.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACEDIA AND DEPRESSION? HOW CAN PEOPLE TELL WHICH THEY ARE SUFFERING FROM?
KN: At a basic level, depression is an illness that will respond to medical intervention, and acedia is a temptation that may be resisted. The big problem is trying to discern which affliction we're dealing with and what we need to do about it. Being willing to seek help is always of primary importance.
I can usually spot the reasons behind depression. But acedia can arise suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, to turn a good day bad.

YOU WERE THE MAIN CAREGIVER FOR YOUR HUSBAND AS HE SUFFERED THROUGH MANY YEARS OF CHRONIC ILLNESS THAT ENDED WITH HIS DEATH IN 2003. HOW DID YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND EXPERIENCE OF ACEDIA CHANGE OVER THAT TIME?
KN: Acedia is tricky. It can surface as boredom, but it can also attach itself to our busy schedules, making us too weary to care about much except the next task on the list. In caregiving, I adopted the role of a woman warrior, and it worked for a while, especially during times of crisis. I got things done for the people I loved. But the eternal question that acedia asks - the "why bother?" - was always there, lurking in the shadows, suggesting that what I was doing was useless and that there was no hope.

WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND TO BE THE UNIQUE HEALING POWERS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE?
KN: I discuss this a bit in the book. I think it is the witness to stability that monastic people give in an unstable world. No matter what, they pray the psalms, day in, day out, and they've been doing it for 1,700 years. Even when I am unable to pray, knowing that others are praying is a great support and encouragement to me.
Also, it makes sense that practice in prayer will help, just as it does when you are learning to play the piano or trying to write. When you make something a habit, you also become more open to new possibilities. You have a grounding that allows for growth.

HOW CAN THE CONCEPT OF SIN BE HELPFUL TO US IN UNDERSTANDING ACEDIA, AND CAN YOU USE THE TERM IN A WAY THAT DOES NOT STIR UP UNHELPFUL AND NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS?
KN: The early monks' designation of "eight bad thoughts" that plague human beings was a liberating concept for me. It allowed me to let go of some of that old, useless church baggage. Theologians who came after the monks came to define sin as acts, and once you do that, people tend to either escape into self-righteousness (thinking, well, if I haven't committed adultery, I don't have to worry about lust), or they wallow in needless guilt, feeling themselves to be beyond redemption.
But if I admit that the bad thoughts come to me - greed, pride, anger, and so on - I am also admitting that I am no better - and no worse - than anyone else in being susceptible to temptation. The important thing is what I do with the thought when it comes, and how I act on it.

SOME OF THE MOST PERCEPTIVE COMMENTATORS ON ACEDIA WERE CHRISTIAN MONKS FROM THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. WHY WAS IT SO SIGNIFICANT TO THEM? WHAT DID THEY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT?
KN: These were people who were fleeing a newly respectable and wealthy church, going into the deserts of the Mideast to pursue a life "off the grid," as it were, a simple life focused on prayer and the sharing of goods. It was a life stripped bare and often lived in such solitude that these people became extremely alert to their thoughts as they arose. They noted which were helpful and which were destructive. They thought about their thoughts and, in so doing, became the original psychologists, at least in the West.
These monks practiced what they called the "manifestation of thoughts," which meant telling an elder about any disturbing thoughts that arose in the course of pursuing the monastic life. I detect links between this informal arrangement and what later became the ritualized confession of the church, and still later, in the twentieth century, the practice of psychotherapy.

IN YOUR EXPERIENCE, WHAT PARTICULAR KINDS OF HELP CAN PSYCHOTHERAPY OFFER THAT SPIRITUAL PRACTICE SOMETIMES CANNOT?
KN: It depends so much on the individual. My husband was helped by psychotherapy, while practices like reading the psalms and consulting a spiritual mentor have worked better for me. Twice in our marriage we benefited from seeing a marriage counselor; just having a third party who would listen to us and not take sides helped us heal our relationship.
I think that for some people, the notion of spiritual practice as healing is tinged with a deep-seated guilt. They can't shake the notion that if they were really "good," or if they really had strong religious faith, they wouldn't ever be depressed. Psychotherapy and/or medication might help such a person out of that bind, but I wouldn't count out a spiritual mentor, someone who could help them shed the needless guilt. Nowadays, the people who work in "spiritual formation" or counseling are likely to have education and training in psychology; some are psychiatrists.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE USE OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND OTHER PSYCHOTROPIC MEDICATIONS?
KN: These medicines represent a great advance in our understanding of brain chemistry and have obviously helped millions of people to live better lives. I can't imagine wanting to turn back the clock. But I also think we need to be honest about the fact that we are still at a primitive stage in our knowledge of neurochemistry. Given that reality, it is not always in our best interest to believe the promotional material put out by the manufacturers of these drugs, who are known to put pressure on physicians to prescribe them. It is Big Business, and that makes me wary.
(Editor's Note: For more on this, see "Placebos for Depression?" S&H, May/June 2008, here.)

HOW DO YOU SUSTAIN YOUR FAITH AT TIMES WHEN YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LOST CONTACT WITH GOD, AND PRAYER SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE?
KN: Well, I guess the first thing to do is forget about instant gratification. If that's what you're after, religion will be a big disappointment. But it can offer a kind of stability over the long haul that allows hope to bloom, even in dire circumstances. I've found that whenever I feel that God has abandoned me, it is usually the other way around. This isn't cause for guilt; it simply means that I need to wait until my mind has cleared a bit, and I can focus on things in a new way.