Saturday, May 5, 2007

Acedia

A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest;
So shall your poverty come like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.


The common perception of sloth, or laziness, is an active avoidance of that which is physically strenuous. I wonder though, how many of us make it a point to be lazy? Do we have the backbone to petulantly shake our fist at the world and say "This I will not do, no matter the need!"? Genereally, no. We lack the wherewithall to do even that. So, we blame it on others.

We lay the blame at the feet of others, of our "schedules", of a universe aligned against us and the clocks we run our lives by. We blame our jobs, the ubiquitous "Honey-Do" list, and all manner of things, but it seems we cannot take our own selves in hand and get the job done. Somehow we all seem to talk so big of "Living our lives for no man but ourselves..." but as soon as it is convenient, we foist the blame for our own shortcoming, our own faults, our own failures on someone else. So much for being the master of our own destiny eh?

It is far past time for us to stop confusing motion for action, activity for productivity and words for actions. It is time to quit using others, and more importaintly our poor choices, as excuses for not doing what we say we will. Our days are numbered, and its not a very large number. Let us not get to our own "End of days" and not have done the things of value we had said we would.

When we are young
Wandering the face of the earth
Wondering what our dreams might be worth
Learning that were only immortal --
For a limited time

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