Acēdía
From The Andreia Philosophy Code, Spirit book, ‘The Path’ Entry, Acedia section.
Acedia is a forgotten philosophical concept sorely needed today.
The domain of Acedia is a carelessness for life where nothing matters. The walls of Acedia are transparent; you don’t realize your imprisonment unless you consciously touch the walls of your cell.
Many die in Acedia, only realizing their imprisonment near the final moment, clinging to life, because they never lived while they had it.
The cell walls exist at the edges of your current abilities. Those who are free see the edges of their current abilities, and walk the path beyond them, expanding their edge. Those trapped in Acedia do not walk beyond their current abilities because their spirits are trapped in Acedia.
Acedia of the body domain
If you haven’t worked out in ten years and desire the fulfillment that comes from pursuing mastery in the body domain, the first step a wanderer may consider is acquiring a gym membership to work out four days per week.
If the wanderer hasn’t trained in ten years, is a goal to train six days per week without expiration the best approach to build momentum? It could be. But ten years without training is a significant amount of rust to remove to train like this.
A better goal may be a single push-up.
A single squat.
Just one.
It’s crucial for wanderers to develop momentum for walking forward up the path in all domains. Placing your target too far down the path when the domain is covered in rust may stop momentum in its tracks, pushing the wanderer to pursue pleasure, which is easy and comfortable but cannot provide fulfillment.
If the wanderer sets a goal to do one pushup, their chances of starting and completing their goal is high.
This builds momentum.
After doing small steps for a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, the wanderer’s CAPACITY will exceed their task; doing a single pushup will feel unfulfilling; the wanderer knows they have greater CAPACITY to use; they will use their greater CAPACITY to further express their desire for growth and mastery.
Not believing in yourself means you are unaware of your capacity. Identify and grow your capacity by taking small steps forward, and you will begin to believe in yourself.
Everyone has capacity to obtain fulfillment. Acedia blinds the wanderer to their capacity, so the wanderer pursues pleasure because they are afraid to move forward in the darkness.
To escape Acedia, start with what you are 100% willing to do, and your willingness to do will grow with each repetition or step down the path.
This applies to all domains, not just the body.
Acedia of the mind domain
Acedia in the mind is the refusal to pursue mastery in the domain of mind. Pursuing mastery in the mind domain can be almost anything that requires mental effort, like creativity, problem solving, conceptualization–an almost limitless number of paths to mastery using the mind.
In order to be balanced and fulfilled, each wanderer must pursue mastery in Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS).
You will often see the unaware being dominated in their pursuit of domain mastery in mind or body, if the unaware pursues mastery at all. An unbalanced individual, like an unbalanced cart, is not stable and will not move forward effectively.
Most unawares pursue pleasure, which cannot be fulfilled.
The pursuit of pleasure in the mind domain is the same as in the body domain; easy come, easy go.
Pleasures of the mind domain can include passive watching media, gaming, gossiping, reading topical information with no depth, social media, and millions of other wastes of time.
Courage is not, “no fear”. Courage is feeling fear or resistance and doing the thing anyway.
Steven Pressfield | The War of Art
Math is a mind domain path to mastery that can be intimidating to the inexperienced, unless the wanderer is gifted with natural talent. Even then, the far-away distance of the mountains of mastery can be intimidating, even for the hardiest of wanderers. For those that aren’t intimidated, math can be a monster one knows exists, or even sees, but ignores out of fear, even when the value of slaying the monster is profound.
While math itself may not be the higher purpose of the wanderer, when has learning math ever harmed the individual? Math is an example of a universally beneficial path to mastery that helps all wanderers. Understanding the logic of the universe can only help, not harm the wanderer. It is another path to mastery that can and should be followed by most.
The wanderer who pursues entertainment(pleasure) instead of mastery over the domain of mind(knowledge) will not find fulfillment of the mind.
Mental pursuits are not all academic in nature; woodworking, jujitsu, automobile racing, are all pursuits of the mind, for example.
Many paths to mastery may touch all domains at once.
How to escape the domain of Acedia
To escape Acedia, the wanderer must walk forward down the path, starting with a step forward so small that it seems ridiculous. When you haven’t made progress, when you haven’t moved forward in a long time, you must build momentum with small steps before you begin to think about normal, or even large steps forward down the path.
The same goes if you don’t have a path.
The same goes if you’re tired.
If you’re tired, you walk forward with small steps and go to bed early. If you pursue pleasure when you are tired, you will be worse off and risk building a momentum of pursuing pleasure.
The Wall
Acedia is the wall. The brick wall, the glass ceiling, Acedia is the container the spirit locks itself in while grasping the key, until it decides it is time to leave.
By pushing up against the wall, you demand the spirit expands the walls outward, destroying self-imposed limits in the pursuit of mastery.
This is the path to fulfillment.
