More on 'sloth'

In an earlier post I dubbed mental laziness 'sloth'. Here are more thoughts on sloth.

Some of this mental laziness comes from the refusal to grow up. The refusal to grow up entails the resistance to learning new things, things about life, about how the world works. It comes from hubris and the feeling that one knows all that’s worthwhile knowing.

Sometimes this refusal to change, to grow up, to evolve, is borne out of the feeling that one’s identity was rejected or deemed ‘not good enough’ by someone else. In her defiance to these feelings of rejection, she becomes determined to be her self unwaveringly. She assumes the credo, “I gotta be me. Come what may, I gotta be me.” But this sense of her self is limited to how she sees herself in that moment when she has decided to stay firm in her selfhood. Therefore, she effectively ‘freezes’ herself in time. The totality of the self that she had come to know at, say, the age of 21, remains the same self she insists on knowing into her chronological 30s, 40s, and beyond.

It is fear therefore that has made her lazy. It’s paradoxical: on one hand she is firm – exerts force – in holding onto this identity; on the other hand, she has been weakened by the fear of being rejected or disappointed again. As a result she has limited herself to the point of self-debilitation for to learn is to feed oneself.

To “be me”, to be one’s authentic self, is also to be mutable. To relish the wonder of Life as a young person would is to be open, hopeful, curious. Contrary to what this person believes, to define herself according to a finite array of tastes, interests, and notions is a disservice to her self. It is the failure to honour her organic nature. And this failure to honour her natural, evolving self, is grounded in the ego, which, by the way, is not endemic to humanity; it is earthly.

Ultimately, this frozen identity eventually becomes angry, frustrated that her limited point-of-view and, therefore, limited understanding, has fallen short of leading her to a place of self-satisfaction. To add insult to injury: she’s angry and dissatisfied and she can’t understand why. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.