Sloth is an ugly word, one of the ugliest in the language. It
has the great virtue of being underused. How many times have you said it, read it, or heard
it in the past year? Sloth is a sin because it does not take a fair
share of the washing up. "Find yourself something to do dear, find yourself something to
do." Those of us old enough to have had adolescents at home have little difficulty in
remembering the rage induced by their extraordinary ability to lie abed until lunch time.
Sloth does not have many entries in the Oxford Book of Quotations. Among them are
George Herbert:
O England, full of sin but most of sloth;
Spit out thy phlegm, and fill thy breast with glory
or Bishop Thomas Ken:
Awake my soul and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful
rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.(1)
Ugh! "What is this world, if full of care we have no time to stand and stare?" Time to
stand and stare, time to think, is seen by others as sloth. It is told that Petr Skrabanek,
while working in the laboratory, was party to a discussion about the importance of obtaining
new equipment. His response: "We do not need more equipment, we need to think, we need a
chaise longue."
More recently sloth has literally become a deadly sin. The "couch
potato" not only gives offence but shortens his life. As somebody who looks after several
people who are living to die the slow death of senescence, there seems to me to be a strong
case for relatively early and speedy death. In a world where all women are taking hormone
replacement therapy and all men are taking statins, the possibility of peaceful myocardial
infarction will diminish, and many more can look forward to life "sans teeth, sans eyes,
sans taste, sans everything."
I wonder how great thinkers, who were obliged to do their
thinking at home, managed to escape the accusation of sloth. I suspect that Darwin used the
"sick role" to create the necessary escape from obligatory trivia. Montaigne had the
luxury of sufficient money to employ others to complete "the daily round, the common
task." For many others-by no means all great thinkers-the university and academia provide
the opportunity to be slothful to good purpose.(2)
Walking is certainly compatible
with thinking. I know of one family which responds to problems with "let's go climb a
hill." Digging is also compatible with thinking but I have doubts about jogging. Certainly
my own shortlived and puny efforts were about pain, and observing others there seems to be
evidence of masochism rather than thought.
I suppose that the Protestant work ethic is
largely responsible for the notion of laziness as sin. It seems to be very distant from
those countries where the siesta is seen as essential. There are aspects of the siesta which
have little to do with the heat of the midday sun. We all need time out of life. Perhaps it
would be good if this were a daily occurrence rather than something achieved occasionally by
"going on a retreat." A little justified sloth might reduce consumption of benzodiazepines
as well as of alcohol.
Sloth, I would argue, is not a synonym for idleness. It is a sin
in the eye of the beholder but the slothful make a positive decision to opt out of the
demands of lovers and friends to be busy to little purpose. We need the luxury and benefits
of occasional sloth.
Department of Community Health and General
Practice,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2
James McCormick,
professor
References:
1 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. 2nd edition.
London:Oxford University Press,1966.
2 McCormick J S. The academic task. Lancet
1988;ii:26.
