Sloth

Some reflections on sloth (not the animal but the behavior). Sloth is defined by the online Merriam Webster dictionary as a 'disinclination to action or labor, aka indolence, and spiritual apathy and inactivity'. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teaching. Both aspects of the definition of sloth interest me, but it is the spiritual apathy and inactivity that interest me the most. Most people equate sloth with physical laziness--not wanting to pick up after yourself, being sloppy, not caring about your appearance, not wanting to help around the house. This laziness is irritating for the people who live with such a person, and it may be indicative of someone who simply does not care enough about the impact of such behavior on himself or herself and others. But this is not the only type of slothful behavior. One might think that sloth is the result of passivity, and that is true in one way. But in another way, it is an active choice in the sense that one 'knows' what one is doing when one is lazy, spiritually or otherwise. One chooses to be slothful, and that by itself is an active choice. Slothfulness is the choice to be passive or to remain passive when the opposite is called for. 

Spiritual apathy and inactivity are rampant in our current society and can be countered by going to church regularly and following a code of good behavior. These things will help one stay on the path toward goodness, so it's important to use the aids/opportunities available to keep ourselves strong in the face of bad influences. The impact of bad behavior on ordinary individuals is insidious. I think about the normalization of bad behavior that is happening more and more in society. We are called to 'call out' bad behavior when we witness it. We are called to action. And there is plenty of bad behavior to call out. Yet many of us simply can't or won't 'get involved'. The way our political leaders behave ought to be enough to rouse us from our stupor. The bad behavior I am referring to includes bullying, harassment, being argumentative for no reason, threatening for no reason, rudeness, aggressiveness (in your face) for no reason, meanness, cruelty, lack of self-insight, blaming others all the time, narcissism, greed. The list is long. 

I have written about narcissism and narcissists before in this blog. Be thankful if you've never met a true narcissist. I have. Narcissists are human tornadoes that sweep in and destroy all semblance of normal life. They are destroyers of peace, happiness, logic, reason and the expectation of a normal life. The destruction they leave behind can take years to clean up. The narcissists that exist among us are spiritually slothful--spiritually apathetic and spiritually inactive. I would go so far as to say that their slothfulness is a type of mental disorder, the result of their choices to not do the right thing when they know they should. It is the choice, based in our free will, to be selfish, greedy, non-empathetic, mean, and cruel. Narcissism develops gradually over time and is the result of slothful behavior, in my opinion. Slothful behavior leads to evil, and the fact that we as a society are normalizing slothfulness and evil behavior is the beginning of the end of civilized society in my book. We must continue to call out bad behavior when we see it. We must continue to be spiritually active. We must continue to try to be the best people we can be on a daily basis. This is what we are called to do as good people who care about the society we live in. 

Rat and the modern lifestyle

My laugh for the day, thanks to Stephan Pastis and Pearls Before Swine......I always get a kick out of Rat. 

The end result of laziness

I'm all for giving away second-hand/used clothing to charitable organizations that distribute it to those in need. I do it myself a couple of times a year. For example, the Salvation Army and the Red Cross do a wonderful job with organizing this. Their numerous clothing bins are distributed around the city, and it doesn't really matter which organization you support when you deposit bags of clothing in the bins belonging to one of these organizations. The goal is to help others and to reuse clothing. But there reaches a point when enough is enough; when people are lazy and don't walk the extra distance to place clothing in a bin that's not completely full. The other thing they don't do is place the clothing they're giving away in a bag and seal it before they try to dump it in the bin. I walked by this bin the other day and became irritated. I thought, how can people be so lazy? I mean really, what does it cost them to walk a few blocks further to deposit their bags of clothing in another bin? But they won't do that, nor will they place the clothing in a bag before they deposit it. They'd rather that the bins end up looking like this--see photo below. I have to say that I just don't get it. No wonder sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. There is an awful lot of sloth in society, and by that I mean, an aversion to making active, conscious decisions to better oneself and society. Every time you litter or dump clothing willy-nilly wherever it suits you, every time you don't do what you should do for the good of all, you are being slothful. If you behave in this way, you cannot tell me that you love the people around you or your country. Quite the opposite. You are saying, 'I don't care about my neighborhood or my country'. You are saying 'I'm entitled to do as I please. Someone else can pick up after me'. And that is what happens most of the time. In my book, you are selfish and spoiled, in addition to being lazy. Because when I see these bins, I think of garbage bins. That's what you're essentially depositing in these bins--your garbage. It doesn't help these organizations one bit that they have to use their time cleaning up after you and sorting through what is useful and what is not. And it is not their fault that people are so incredibly shameless and lazy.