Cheyenne Brunet’s Reviews > Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire > Status Update

“Sloth’s cure is staying in the cell, remaining yolked to the work God has given, including the universal vocation of the creation mandates, the task of our particular vocations as individuals, and the various disciplines of a well-ordered life. While perhaps unromantic, this settling into our cell allows for virtue, since natural virtue requires habituation.”

“Sloth is not overcome by non-sloth but by the fullness of virtue, by approving or affirming the world, seeing it as God sees it.”

“When such misunderstood autonomy governs our life, it is inevitable that others must be rejected, for everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself, since every other person is a competitor to our own unchecked sovereignty. The common good is not sought, merely the individual good, and when the goods conflict, a breakdown of genuinely human coexistence has already begun.”

“Each and every mortal thing communicates its interiority, flinging out the hidden mystery of its being, at the same time, speaking forth Christ, through whom all things were made, in whom all things are redeemed, and with whom all things utter back their joyous praise to the father who loves them.“

“Moderns struggle to find the world beautiful, or good, or of worth, and once the world and the things of the world are thought worthless in themselves, they bore us…however horrifying, we find this boredom impossible to give up- we like the boredom- because the meaninglessness of the world allows us to treat it and others and ourselves exactly as we wish.”

“While some might consider an ungrazed pasture to be optimal, this is not the case, for under-grazing is almost as damaging to the grass and soil as overgrazing. Intelligent use improves the soil beyond what it would be if merely left fallow.”

“…in the end, the purpose of work is not the objective good it brings, however beneficial, for ‘it is always man who is the purpose of work…’ Whatever some of the ancient pagans thought, work, including physical work, does not degrade, nor does the toil accompanying work after the fall destroy the dignity of work.”

Wow, just wow!