The Seven Deadlies: Sloth

it in the context of our friend Dante. Yeah. The interesting thing about slot is that, but before you really get into it it youve initially think, oh, slot, laziness, that's easy. But it's actually a little more uneven than that. You know. It's like it depends on who's defining slot exactly what it is. You go back and you look at accounts of it in the medieval Christian Church, and you do see it in terms of this disinclination to use labor and to exert yourself in a very you know,

physical means. But then you also have drug of doctors and saints like Thomas Aquinas who called it sadness in the face of spiritual good which one has to achieve. So you see it also defines to this kind of spiritual or emotional apathy. Yeah, I saw it in the context of a moral failing, a combination of alienation and tedium with a little self contempt thrown in. And it afflicted jaded monks who had tired of the cloistered life.

And so it was a sin because they were actually turning away from their moral obligations and towards selfish pursuits. It was termed buy the Discovered Magazines article. I didn't sin, it was my brain as a monistic form of on. We well in Dante's Inferno there and I think we mentioned this already. There's no circle of sloth per se. But as we discussed in Wrath, we we do wind up on the river sticks with good old Dante and Virgil.

As we're moving across this slimy, swampy just horrible muck fest that is stick, we see that there are bubbles rising up to the surface. They're rising up from the bottom, and that is where the sullen are. The river Sticks has the sullen, and they have the wrathful the wrathful are over there, biting and punching and douging it out on the surface, and the sullen are submerged in the

bottom of this horrible slimy like they're down there. Yeah, they're They're pouting, they're gargling, these mock prayers up through the waters. It's the idea that it's anger expressed in two ways. Here with the wrathful, it's anger that's it's outward, it's like I hate everything, gonna punch everything in the face. And then here it's anger that is inverted, that's pushes inward on the person, crushing them under the weights. Anger. Yeah.

I'm actually gonna read a quick bit from a translation of Dante and Frona, just to give you a little taste of the sullen and sticks. Here, my kind master said, son, now behold the souls of those whom Anger vanquished. And I would have you believe too, as a certainty, that under the water are people who are sighing, making the

water bubble at the surface. As your eye will tell you wherever it turns fixed in the mind, or they say, we will gloomy in the sweet air, and the sun makes us glad, bearing within us the fumes of sullenness. Now we languish in the black slime. This hymn they gurgle in their throats, for they cannot fully form the words. So we wound about a large arc of the filthy swamp, between the dry bank and the wetness. Our eyes turned on those whose swallow mud. We came to the foot

of a tower at the last. And that's from the version of Inferno that is edited and translated by Robert M. Durling, which I highly recommend. I think it's really cool. Translation, has a lot of interesting notes that really illuminate this fascinating text. And if you travel into Dante's purgatory, it's a little less interesting. There is a terrace, the fourth race of purgatory, and again purgatory is in Dante's Divine Comedy,

is this mountain that connects the earth to Heaven. And if you're you're not bad enough for hell, but you're not good enough for Heaven, you're gonna have to work off your sins and polish yourself up before you can actually walk through the doorf heaven. So on the fourth level of Purgatory, you work off all that sloth, and

here the slothful. They were slothful in life, and now they're showing great vigor, running around and circles on this terrace, shouting various famous examples of slothful behavior and the opposite virtue, which Dante definds a decisive zeal. So in life, these people really didn't care about anything, and they weren't really

applying themselves. So to work it off, their shouting and running around, and they're they're screaming all these examples of of horrible sloth, but also examples of what they should have been doing, which is just getting really zealous about something important. So before they were gulping mud, and now

they're just running around like maniacs. Yeah, and real quickly, I'm going to head east for a second and just point out that in Buddhism, sloth or torpor is one of the five hindrances that interfere with meditation, along with sensual desire, ill will, restlessness, and remorse and doubt. And according to sam KaiA, one of the six orthodox systems of Hindu philosopy, the there are three primal qualities of matter. Okay, the highest one is something called satva, which is illumination,

enlightened knowledge, and lightness. And then there's one called Rajas, which is energy, passion and expansiveness. And the third is Thomas or darkness, and this is obscurity, ignorance, and inertia. So in this idea we see the idea of sloth as it relates to physical reality, but then that's also

sometimes applied to our inner realities as well well. And I think that sloth is interesting because it's one of those, again sins that doesn't seem so bad, so you kind of have to wonder, well, why is it such a problem. In the church traditions especially, you see it defined as a capital sin, meaning that it's a sin that leads to other sins. So you start off as just being a lazy and slothful, the next thing you know, you're being lustful or you're you know, you're doing something worse.

It's like a gateway sin, according to some of the commentators. Well, there's also this idea that sloft is a sin because it contributes to the individual's failure to achieve achieve his or her future her true self expression right sit in this regard is really important because time is of the essence, right, we are a time limited creature here on this earth.

We live, we die, And so the thought is that if you're engaging in sloth all the time, then you're wasting this precious gift or these moments in which you could again be achieving something that sort of transcends yourself. Right, whether you're looking at your time on Earth and your existence here is a gift from some sort of divine being or just an accident of evolution, there's no denying that there is a finite amount of time in which

to achieve something. And if you put any value on achieving anything, then at the end of the day, you've you've got to look at yourself and say, like, Wow, what did I actually get done today? And if the answer is not much or nothing, then perhaps oh I

was even thinking. In the context of Lawrence Krass, like we've talked about him and what he talks about in terms of supernova's dying and that material spewing fourth actually creating the Earth and how you know, the nitrogen, carbon dioxide, all these different things that um, you know, are actually in our own bodies are a result of the supernova's you know, blasting into little bits and shards, and when you think about it, that when you're like, wow, I

am sitting here, living and breathing because of these incredible things that have happened in the universe. Yeah, that makes Slot feel really like, like pretty awful. Actually, it's kind of if you were looking at the timeline someone's like, and then a star exploded and this matter traveled across the universe and then for a little bit there, uh, it was embodied in this person who hate potato chips.

But but what fascinates me too about Slot is that by some of these definitions, it's not necessarily just that guy that's setting on the couch eaven potato chips and doing nothing. You could have that guy who's living a very active life, a very busy life. You know, he's running in the morning, then he goes to his banking job or whatever. Then he comes back more running, uh, you know than socializing. But then at the to the day, has he done anything emotionally or spiritually that isn't selfish?

You know? Like it's that I think we a lot of us have that kind of realization in our lives at different points where we're like we look at ourselves and we wonder, am I really contributing that much that is good to the world, Am I doing something that is that is that is worthwhile? Or am I just

existing in the muck of my own Uh? Yeah? Well, and it's highly subjective because one man's sloth is another person's great productivity, right, And some people are just going to have more empathy, more emotional attachment to various topics. You know, like one person is going to be like, Wow, how could you spend your whole day and not think about the conditions on the other side of the world, or or think about you know, people that have less

and try to give back. If you're not thinking about that, then it's just me and you have the blinders up to it. I mean it's okay, so um, not quite right now. But in a little bit we are actually going to talk about why that maybe why some people are more aware of this and what sloth is for some people and not for others. But let's talk about what's going on in the old noggain. Yes, inside the

human brain. What is the science again? According to that Discover magazine article, I didn't sin it was my brain, the dorso lateral prefrontal cortex or the d l PFC has an unusual pattern of activation in both dementia and depression, so they see that its function is actually related to inhibiting impulses and sustaining attention, which is really important when

it comes to motivation. Right, So for people who are experiencing depression or dementia, there is a bit of activation in that part that may suggest that this this part of the brain is actually a little bit weakened. I guess you could say, for lack of a better word there so as opposed to being this capital sin, this sort of weak point through which all the other problems surge, me, it's really more of a symptom of other problems in

the brain. It's a question of sustaining attention in feeling motivation, right, because if you can't not sit down for five minutes and try to do something in your brain wanders, especially if you know you are experiencing depression or you do have dementia obviously, uh, you know you're going to lead to some sort of possible lethargy or just I don't know, walking around the room in circles trying to lift your spirits. Right.

So conversely, activity in this air kid actually help camp down negative emotions and some studies depression lifted with stimulation of this part of the brain. And of course it's the aspect of boredom, right, How engaged can one be if there is nothing to be engaged with? Can you

die from it? Can you die of it? Yes? And I think we've touched on this topic in the past, and we discussed how like isolation affects an individual where where our brains are are evolved in our our brains function in a changing world, like we need a new stimuli to keep it active, and if the stimuli doesn't change, then our brain becomes hyperactive and has to pull on stimuli that isn't necessarily there, and it can cause all

number of problems inside the mind. Yeah, and there's this idea that boredom can't exactly lead to death, but your behavior, which could be risky because you're seeking a way out of boredom, could put you in a predicament that could

leak into your death certainly. Um In the can You Dive Boredom article by Kristin Congress, she actually talks about how boredom prone people are more likely to engage in these high risk activities we're talking about compulsive gambling, alcoholism, drug addiction, and eating disorders and uh in the article also says that men are particularly susceptible, as well as

people with brain injuries or some psychotic disorders. Now, what's interesting about that is that brings us back to the idea of floth is a capital sin, because then if we look at it, this idea that sloth is boredom and tedium, then yes, it could be a catalyst for other activities that are quote unquote more sinful but more destructive, like you like, I mean the classic example that comes to mind, it's like a board king. Oh he's boored.

What is he going to do with his time? Oh he's going to eat more because he's and now he's buttonists. Or he's going to pursue the pleasures of the flesh and now he's lustful, or he's going to really get into warfare, or the persecution of witches. And this leads to all all sorts of violence against the people within his country and those without. Yeah, the persecution of which is things is it's a big problem here. Well, no,

but the kids hang around being bored. I'm talking about in I've been reading a lot about witchcraft recently a well, specifically demonology and witchcraft in the mindset of those that end up crafting the theories of witchcraft and demonology, which of course are the learned men of the age. And you do have situations where they're and I don't have to date in front of me, so I can't give

you the guy's name. You have like this one prince who has all of this time on his hands, and that's how he ends up occupying his time by really getting into ideas of witchcraft theory. And it's extremely harmful to his own people, so right, and which is you know, it's certainly a marker of obsession to write. And what I think is interesting about this idea of high risk behavior and sloth or boredom is that it puts a new skew on it, right, because normally you think about

sloth is sitting around not doing much torpor. But I mean this kind of makes us reframe it as people who are bored easily, who want to be engaged in something but are just kind of running from one thing to the other. I mean, actually, I've actually was thinking about this in the context of neophiliacs, which we talked about people who really just want a new experience and actually contain the genes for this, right. They are hardwired

in a sense to seek out these new activities. And if you have this in an imbalance, then you have a situation where someone can't stick with something for long. They a constantly need some sort of new stimulation to the point where it's like, oh, today I'm a musician, Tomorrow I'm going to be really interested in being an actor. And you never actually pursue these to the level where they you can actually be successful with them. Yeah, well, okay, so I have to bring up our friend dopamine. You

knew what was coming here. It is it could be that those people have a less dopamine in their system than others. And let me just go over dopamine again. This is the neurotransmitter. It triggers an emotional response in the brain, and when we experience something like join excitement, we get this kind of ding ding in our brains. Um. So there's a theory that high risk, boredom prone people

may have naturally lower levels of dopamine. Okay, so they have to reach out for it more so, it's like they have a hole in the wine skin of their dopamine. It's it's possible. And then also people with damage to the frontal cortex experience greater risk taking urges along with boredom proneness, So there's a connection there. And the frontal cortex is also where we perceive time, which could be related to the feeling that time is passing so slowly

when we're really bored. That flows right into the theories of relativity where if you're sitting there watching hey, ry, time is gonna pass a lot slower than if you're doing something exciting. Wasn't this Einstein's experience after he was

talking to Barelyn Monroe or something. Yes, his whole deal was if you you're staring at a beautiful woman, time speeds up, which I have on several times, and mentioned that I think that could somehow be worked into a propulsion system for spaceship, like somehow use attractive women in a spaceship observed by elderly scientists, and that will somehow warp our perception of time enough to facilitate faster than light travel. So we have to be objectified in space. Two, well,

it's necessary if we're gonna exit this. We're talking about the long term survival of the human race. I think women can can doll up a little for that. Yeah, sure, okay, well we'll get our makeup kits for that one. All right, when we come back from our break, we're going to talk about the upside of sloth. Alright, we're back, So

the upside of sloth. I was looking around a litt On several occasions, I've I've referred to the writings of Anton LaVey, not because he's the ultimate authority in the sort of Virtue of Sin dialogue, but because I tend to find the founder of the Church of Satan very amusing from a cultural perspective. And even he didn't have much to say about slot and his introduction to the Satanic Bible, where he's he's generally going through all these sins and talking about how great they are and how

they really balance each other out. He just kind of mentioned sloth and passing. So how can sloth actually be beneficial if even a hard working Satanist couldn't find anything really all that's great about? Okay, all right, Well, take

a little journey with me. Okay, I'm gonna refer to Wired article by Jonah Laire who's talking about sloth And he talks about a study conducted by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert and Matthew A. Killingsworth, and they developed an iPhone app that contacted twenty people volunteers at random intervals, asking them about their current activity and their levels of happiness. What they found, amazingly is that people were mind wandering about forty six point nine percent of the time. Okay,

half half of our lives right there, just wandering about. Yes. So that kind of took them down another trail, and so they decided, well, let's look into this whole day dreaming mind wandering thing going on, and uh, it turns out that you could actually benefit from daydreaming a good chunk of your time away. And let's call it something like lucid daydreaming. You have to have the ability to be aware that on some level that your daydreaming while

still remaining inward. Okay, so that's very similar to to lucid dreaming, right, same concept. If you're dreaming, you're in slumber. You kind of have to know that that you're doing what you're doing, but also participate in whatever story that

you're weaving. So psychology Professor Johnathan's schooler found now that there are two types of day dreamers or day dreaming, and this was shown in a study where participants were given a slow section of Warren Peace to read okay, and then time how long it took before they started

thinking about something else. Uh. The first type of daydreaming occurs when people notice that their daydreaming, but really only when they're prodded by the one of the researchers do they actually realize that, like and I say, hey, are you daydreaming yet? Yeah, I'm okay. And then the second type, or again the sort of lucid daydreamers who can self report who are daydreaming but are really good at saying I'm gonna press the button I realized right now that

I'm daydreaming. Those people score the highest on just a variety of creativity tests because again they're able to sort of realize that they're within this dream world, and yet there are aspects of this dream world that they can actually apply to. I guess you could say, whatever reality is at this point, you know, or to more may

be practical things in their life. Well. As a writer, as someone who who writes not only science but also um like fiction on the side, I've spent a lot of time daydreaming with that in mind, and I feel like when I set out to I mean, I do some daydream that serves no purpose at all as well, But a lot of times I'll intentionally daydream on a various you know, fantastic setting or plot idea or something that I'm thinking about writing someday or I'm actively writing

now or have written in the past and may conceivably rewrite in the future, And so I'll throw the daydreaming into that, and I'll be like, I'm just gonna instead of reading on the train this morning, I'm just gonna crank up some music and think about these characters at

the setting. And you're bringing out an awareness to right, I'm bringing that awareness to it, and it's kind of it's kind of goal oriented because I'm thinking, if I get this right, if I can figure out how the flow of this works, or if something really explosive and creative comes out of it, then that's something I can

work into a story at some point. Okay, So that's the cognitive gold that is possibly provided to us, you know, considering that you know, silver bronze, especially if you think about in the context of really do we daydream half of our lives are are waking hours away. Because if we're doing that, maybe we should all engage in in this sort of lucid daydreaming, which is, you know, you don't have to be a zen master, but it does take some effort. Certainly, meditation is helpful for that because

you become aware of your thoughts more easily. I mean, you know, you can think of it like brainstorming. Really right, You know, there are no bad ideas in brainstorming. Most of the ideas you generate in a brainstorming session for a business or any kind of business setting, you're gonna throw most of those away and maybe you'll get two or three that you can actually run with. So yeah, and think about thought experiments. So we've talked about this before,

the thought experiments. There is no point to a solution at this point. It is just a scenario that you put out there and you say, what if and it could be the most ridiculous, most surreal thing. Um. The point is not to get to some sort of logical like and this is how you solve it. It's just to let your mind sort of tick through the options

So there you have it, Sloth. It's not as nailed down to some of these other sins, motivations, aspects of the human heart, but it's certainly one that is interesting and certainly one that fills a lot of our lives. All right, I have just one quick listener mail, so let's call the robot over here. All right. This one comes to us from Joel. Joel says, Hello, Robert and Julie. Big fan of the show. First, I want to thank

you for the podcast. You're welcome. I work a third shift job where I'm alone for about eight hours a night, and podcasts are how I keep myself from losing my mind. Yours and other house stuff works podcasts are a part of that. I just wanted to say that another podcast I listened to, wire Tap, a CBC radio show that mixes interviews and phone conversations and sometimes monologues and sketches around the topic, is also doing a series on the

Seven Deadly Sins. I've been been holding off on listening to both there and your Seven Deadly since series, and I've been putting together a playlist of the episodes to listen to together. All I need now is their episode on Greed and your episode on slot ding ding Ding. I'm I'm really looking forward to listening to all of them in one go, and just wanted to throw the idea out there for any other stuff to blow your mind listeners who also listen to podcasts in big chunks

of time. Thanks Joe, Thanks Joel. That's actually really cool. Um, I would be very interested to get some of your thoughts too, after you absorb all of those different seven

deadly sins from different perspectives. Yeah, and so certainly he's in a situation to discuss this because I've also worked I briefly worked like a factory job, but but I've certainly worked some jokes where there there's not a lot of thought, and I really had to put those into my brain to keep myself saying with a monotonous taft. So I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on slops and how we avoid this this tedium in our lives,

you know. And I'd love to hear anybody's thoughts on sloth how it relates to what do you do in your daily life. If you have any thoughts on slop and video games that would be very interesting to hear about, Like and if you go in for a big, like five hour session of sky Rim and your character just buy some stuff and pick some berries and maybe kills a wolf, does that really feel like you accomplishing him?

Does that feel kind of slothful? I don't know. But if you have a deep sense of satisfaction does that can you call that cloth anymore? And that's exact question. Yeah, So much of it is in the eye of beholder, So behold it for us and let us know. You can find us on Facebook. We are stuff to blow your mind there. If you like us, going there puts the light button, and you can also find us on Twitter, where we are Blow the Mind. You can also drop us a line at Blow the Mind at Discovery dot com.

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