Among the many definitions of melancholy and melancholy, there is one special one. The history of akedia ("despondency") begins as early as the Byzantine monks, but in modern times it acquires a new meaning and relevance.
In 1916, Professor Bertrand Russell was going through hard times. The war continued, the future instilled fear, it became more difficult to remain a pacifist, and scientific pursuits seemed meaningless. Later, in his Autobiography, he confesses: "At times I had fits of such despair that I sat motionless in an armchair for days on end, occasionally reading Ecclesiastes."
At the beginning of the 20th century, many intellectuals suddenly remembered the forgotten word - akedia. So they began to call the melancholic state, falling into which a person does not see the point in his own activities. What previously aroused burning interest seems dull and worthless. “There are no desires, except for one thing - to do nothing. There are no aspirations, except the aspiration for nothingness, ”wrote Rolf Lageborg in his post-World War I description of the akedia.
Edvard Munch, Melancholy (1894-96)
Today, this condition may be referred to as mental fatigue, boredom, longing, or heartache. Previously, it was a state of mind in which a person falls away from divine grace.
The very word "akedia" (lat. Acedia ) first appears among Christian monks-heremites, who spent most of their time alone, being in their cells, and only occasionally gathered for a joint meal or prayer. Akedia is the most difficult test that awaits a person who has embarked on the path of spiritual life. This is a test in which he is forced to face not external temptations, but with himself.
Thanks to diligent self-observation, the monks knew a lot about the unconscious and understood it better than many modern psychoanalysts. Evagrius of Pontic, who lived in the 4th century AD sometimes even called "Freud before Freudianism." He left a heartfelt and ironic description of akedia, in which every procrastinator can easily recognize himself:
“The demon of despondency, also called the midday demon, is the hardest of all. [...]. First of all, this demon makes the monk notice that the sun moves very slowly or remains completely motionless, and the day becomes like fifty o'clock. Then the demon [of despondency] compels the monk to constantly look out the windows and jump out of his cell in order to look at the sun and find out how much is still left until nine o'clock, or in order to see if any of the brethren are nearby. This demon also instills in the monk hatred for the [chosen] place, the kind of life and manual labor, as well as [the thought] that love has run out and there is no one [who could] comfort him."
Fragment of the painting "The Temptation of St. Anthony" by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1490)
Loneliness and doubt in the chosen cause causes Akedias. This is a state in which any desire is extinguished. Nothing inspires interest - you either want to lie on the bed without getting up, or run wherever you look. This is the moment when I understand: I've had enough. I have had enough of my place, my way of life, my character, enough of myself. A similar feeling is experienced by Robinson on his island.
Even if we are not monks, akedia has a lot to do with us.
Roland Barthes, in his How to Live Together lecture course, describes this condition as a “loss of investment” in a certain way of life. “I can wake up in the morning and see the program of my week scrolling in front of me - in the absence of any hope. Everything repeats itself, everything comes back: the same tasks, the same meetings, and at the same time no investment, even if every point of this program is quite tolerable, and sometimes even pleasant. " This is not depression yet, but the meaning of life has already been lost.
Over time, Akedia turned into a sin of despondency, and then became associated with another vice - laziness. Somewhere in the 16th century, Akedia split into two branches: the first (psychic) was combined with melancholy - depression, a gloomy state of mind, the second (social) was explained by laziness, negligence and lack of will. Melancholy was the lot of the privileged classes, and, as always, the common people were punished for laziness and negligence.
Fragment of the painting "The Scientist at the Table" by Emil Wouters (1865-1867)
Melancholy has often been associated with mental fatigue and has even been called the "disease of learning." It was believed that scientists and thinkers, due to excessive practice, are subject to decay and bodily weakness; especially this should be feared by mathematicians, physicists and doctors. Karl Linnaeus wrote about this: "when the spiritual light is concentrated in the brain, everything else is in darkness."
In the 1940s, Swedish neurophysicist Ragnar Granit described how dangerous the "deadly cold of akedia" was for a scientist. It seems to you that all efforts are in vain, all important discoveries have been made before you. Any new business is frightening and not satisfying. His contemporary, teacher Vinhelm Sjöstrand pointed out that the reason for akedia is the overuse of mental energy and the overestimated demands that the scientific environment makes on a person:
“... being in academic circles among people with a high level of intelligence, a person very quickly realizes and is forced to admit - in the face of his conscience and in the face of those around him - the incompleteness of his own knowledge. It is a stone's throw from here to neurotic syndromes of various kinds."
In the article "Scientific Acedia", published in 1967 in one of the American sociological journals, Hans Zetterberg describes other reasons for the feeling of emptiness and self-doubt that awaits many scientists. Excessive specialization, concentration on his subject of research causes Akedia. Charles Darwin, in particular, complained about this: "My consciousness has become like a mechanism that generates patterns from particular facts, while the part of the brain that is responsible for the perception of beauty has suffered."
Shot from the movie "A pigeon was sitting on a branch, thinking about being" (2014)
Many scientists lose interest in their work over time. Sometimes this happens because scientific work does not bring those benefits that are valued by society - wealth, recognition, fame. An intelligent career requires repetitive work and focus. A person who decides to go into science deprives himself of many joys of life - almost like a Heremitic monk seeking spiritual enlightenment inside a narrow cell. It is probably in this state of weakness and impotence that Bertrand Russell read the famous lines of Ecclesiastes: "vanity is vanity - everything is vanity."
When society ceased to be religious, Akedia became a disease of intellectuals. Today it potentially threatens everyone.
We can no longer explain the state of despondency and loss of the meaning of life by demonic obsessions and the absence of divine blessing. But we know akedia, perhaps even better than other generations. In his essay on Akedia, Aldous Huxley wrote: "This is not a sin or a disease of hypochondria, but a state of mind sent to us by fate." History has presented us with so many disappointments that we have every right to fall into akedia.
As a Heremitic monk, any modern man must learn to deal with his own loneliness. But how to deal with acedia? According to experienced monks and some scholars, the best medicine is hard work. The main thing is not to let your mind wander where it pleases, but to stay focused. If akedia is a sign of fatigue, you need to give yourself some rest. Sometimes it is necessary to take a radical step and abandon the old way of life, since it no longer causes any burst of energy. The key to defeating Acedia is to pursue your deepest interests, which depend little on external rewards.
No matter how we describe akedia - as a "midday demon" or mental overstrain, as a loss of meaning in life or as a reduced level of serotonin - this is a condition that can overtake everyone. This is not a mental illness that should be treated with psychopharmacological drugs, as depression is treated, for example. This is a state that a person unconsciously chooses for himself. Your own choice can always be changed, even if it is sometimes very difficult to do so.
In 1916, Professor Bertrand Russell was going through hard times. The war continued, the future instilled fear, it became more difficult to remain a pacifist, and scientific pursuits seemed meaningless. Later, in his Autobiography, he confesses: "At times I had fits of such despair that I sat motionless in an armchair for days on end, occasionally reading Ecclesiastes."
At the beginning of the 20th century, many intellectuals suddenly remembered the forgotten word - akedia. So they began to call the melancholic state, falling into which a person does not see the point in his own activities. What previously aroused burning interest seems dull and worthless. “There are no desires, except for one thing - to do nothing. There are no aspirations, except the aspiration for nothingness, ”wrote Rolf Lageborg in his post-World War I description of the akedia.
Edvard Munch, Melancholy (1894-96)
Today, this condition may be referred to as mental fatigue, boredom, longing, or heartache. Previously, it was a state of mind in which a person falls away from divine grace.
The very word "akedia" (lat. Acedia ) first appears among Christian monks-heremites, who spent most of their time alone, being in their cells, and only occasionally gathered for a joint meal or prayer. Akedia is the most difficult test that awaits a person who has embarked on the path of spiritual life. This is a test in which he is forced to face not external temptations, but with himself.
Thanks to diligent self-observation, the monks knew a lot about the unconscious and understood it better than many modern psychoanalysts. Evagrius of Pontic, who lived in the 4th century AD sometimes even called "Freud before Freudianism." He left a heartfelt and ironic description of akedia, in which every procrastinator can easily recognize himself:
“The demon of despondency, also called the midday demon, is the hardest of all. [...]. First of all, this demon makes the monk notice that the sun moves very slowly or remains completely motionless, and the day becomes like fifty o'clock. Then the demon [of despondency] compels the monk to constantly look out the windows and jump out of his cell in order to look at the sun and find out how much is still left until nine o'clock, or in order to see if any of the brethren are nearby. This demon also instills in the monk hatred for the [chosen] place, the kind of life and manual labor, as well as [the thought] that love has run out and there is no one [who could] comfort him."
Fragment of the painting "The Temptation of St. Anthony" by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1490)
Loneliness and doubt in the chosen cause causes Akedias. This is a state in which any desire is extinguished. Nothing inspires interest - you either want to lie on the bed without getting up, or run wherever you look. This is the moment when I understand: I've had enough. I have had enough of my place, my way of life, my character, enough of myself. A similar feeling is experienced by Robinson on his island.
Even if we are not monks, akedia has a lot to do with us.
Roland Barthes, in his How to Live Together lecture course, describes this condition as a “loss of investment” in a certain way of life. “I can wake up in the morning and see the program of my week scrolling in front of me - in the absence of any hope. Everything repeats itself, everything comes back: the same tasks, the same meetings, and at the same time no investment, even if every point of this program is quite tolerable, and sometimes even pleasant. " This is not depression yet, but the meaning of life has already been lost.
Over time, Akedia turned into a sin of despondency, and then became associated with another vice - laziness. Somewhere in the 16th century, Akedia split into two branches: the first (psychic) was combined with melancholy - depression, a gloomy state of mind, the second (social) was explained by laziness, negligence and lack of will. Melancholy was the lot of the privileged classes, and, as always, the common people were punished for laziness and negligence.
Fragment of the painting "The Scientist at the Table" by Emil Wouters (1865-1867)
Melancholy has often been associated with mental fatigue and has even been called the "disease of learning." It was believed that scientists and thinkers, due to excessive practice, are subject to decay and bodily weakness; especially this should be feared by mathematicians, physicists and doctors. Karl Linnaeus wrote about this: "when the spiritual light is concentrated in the brain, everything else is in darkness."
In the 1940s, Swedish neurophysicist Ragnar Granit described how dangerous the "deadly cold of akedia" was for a scientist. It seems to you that all efforts are in vain, all important discoveries have been made before you. Any new business is frightening and not satisfying. His contemporary, teacher Vinhelm Sjöstrand pointed out that the reason for akedia is the overuse of mental energy and the overestimated demands that the scientific environment makes on a person:
“... being in academic circles among people with a high level of intelligence, a person very quickly realizes and is forced to admit - in the face of his conscience and in the face of those around him - the incompleteness of his own knowledge. It is a stone's throw from here to neurotic syndromes of various kinds."
In the article "Scientific Acedia", published in 1967 in one of the American sociological journals, Hans Zetterberg describes other reasons for the feeling of emptiness and self-doubt that awaits many scientists. Excessive specialization, concentration on his subject of research causes Akedia. Charles Darwin, in particular, complained about this: "My consciousness has become like a mechanism that generates patterns from particular facts, while the part of the brain that is responsible for the perception of beauty has suffered."
Shot from the movie "A pigeon was sitting on a branch, thinking about being" (2014)
Many scientists lose interest in their work over time. Sometimes this happens because scientific work does not bring those benefits that are valued by society - wealth, recognition, fame. An intelligent career requires repetitive work and focus. A person who decides to go into science deprives himself of many joys of life - almost like a Heremitic monk seeking spiritual enlightenment inside a narrow cell. It is probably in this state of weakness and impotence that Bertrand Russell read the famous lines of Ecclesiastes: "vanity is vanity - everything is vanity."
When society ceased to be religious, Akedia became a disease of intellectuals. Today it potentially threatens everyone.
We can no longer explain the state of despondency and loss of the meaning of life by demonic obsessions and the absence of divine blessing. But we know akedia, perhaps even better than other generations. In his essay on Akedia, Aldous Huxley wrote: "This is not a sin or a disease of hypochondria, but a state of mind sent to us by fate." History has presented us with so many disappointments that we have every right to fall into akedia.
As a Heremitic monk, any modern man must learn to deal with his own loneliness. But how to deal with acedia? According to experienced monks and some scholars, the best medicine is hard work. The main thing is not to let your mind wander where it pleases, but to stay focused. If akedia is a sign of fatigue, you need to give yourself some rest. Sometimes it is necessary to take a radical step and abandon the old way of life, since it no longer causes any burst of energy. The key to defeating Acedia is to pursue your deepest interests, which depend little on external rewards.
No matter how we describe akedia - as a "midday demon" or mental overstrain, as a loss of meaning in life or as a reduced level of serotonin - this is a condition that can overtake everyone. This is not a mental illness that should be treated with psychopharmacological drugs, as depression is treated, for example. This is a state that a person unconsciously chooses for himself. Your own choice can always be changed, even if it is sometimes very difficult to do so.
