Sloth - Blog Posts
Thinking About Sin
I'm a big fan of combining the Orthodox eight deadly thoughts with the Catholic seven deadly sins: splitting sloth back into despair (tristitia) and apathy (acedia) [though I like to call this one sloth still], keeping envy, but ditching vainglory.
SLOTH and DESPAIR
While the end result of laziness and despair are effectively the same from the sinner side (you don't do things), the means of temptation are the exact opposite.
Contemplate what a being, say a demon, would be that invites you into sloth: a maid, the latest techno-fad, an overly doting parent. Someone who says, "Let me take care of that," which eventually mutates into a nasty little brain-imp whispering, "Let someone else take care of it." This obviously overlaps with several of the other sins.
Contrast despair, who is here to F*** YOU UP. It is here to break you with a never-ending torrent of misfortune, a constant parade of life kicking you in the teeth. This could also have the exact opposite effect, spurring someone into wrath.
The overlapping area would be someone claiming to protect you from the big scary world, but sloth says "Just don't look," while despair grabs you with both hand and slams your face into the worst of it. "Look at it! Look at this s***!"
In short, despair is clear counterpart to wrath (and both lead toward violence), but apathy/laziness feels disconnected from it and has more in common with pride and envy.
ENVY the Serpent's Glare
The sin of envy sits at the intersection of pride, wrath, and greed. This position, I feel, warrants its inclusion as a designation of category of sin; it's so common, that it seems more than just the sum of its parts, but a natural point. It's like the color green: once viewed as merely shades of blue, but it seems so obvious now that it never should have been. Some even claim envy is the deadliest of the sins, beating out even pride.
PRIDE, VAINGLORY, and VANITY the Devil's Three Heads
Vainglory and vanity just seem like archaic ideas; subdivisions of a theme that were rightfully reorganized. Boasting and self-obsession hardly feel out of place being dubbed pride and the means of temptation would be the same: just someone who's adhered their lips to your rear.
Having them separate seems as absurd to me as splitting gluttony into different sins. Though, I'm not a religious person, so my thoughts here are more narrative (fantasy writing, that is to say) than moral.
Kuro from servamp!