The Demonic Force Sedating Your Soul

A long-forgotten sin has unraveled your resolutions

It’s February, and your resolutions are dead.

I made a 2025 resolution to write prose for thirty minutes each day. It’s a modest goal, something I have done before but have gotten lax with, allowing noble alternatives to take place—research, journaling, and planning. Despite my resolution, I delayed work on this essay for several weeks. I knew what to do and had the time to do it, but I didn’t.

I was possessed.

A demon extended its claws, and I willingly accepted its evil embrace.

Early Christian ascetics called this force the Noonday Demon. The demon manifested as a lethargy that overcame monks halfway through their days, tempting them away from prayer with restlessness, excessive appetite, boredom, neglect, and hopelessness—any distraction to their spiritual traction.

Despite its temporal name, the Noonday Demon is not simply a circadian rhythm, for it could strike any time—morning, noon, or night. Nor is it burnout, although I’m sure it could exploit that chink in one’s monastic armor. The Noonday Demon might seem like procrastination, but its force is far more pernicious than a productivity problem. Added over days, years, and decades, the Noonday Demon steers us toward a sin whose name we have long forgotten.

The Name of the Sin

Our words define our thoughts, which influence our actions and shape our souls. In a culture deficient in morally thick language, we are limited in speaking about spirituality, so we overwork vague terms like “vibe” and “aura points.” Like marionettes, we are susceptible to the manipulative tugs of the Noonday Demon because we aren’t aware of the string.

The Seven Deadly Sins offer sloth as the nearest word to describe this demonic force. Sloth is a “disinclination toward exertion,” a tendency toward laziness. Yet, lounging around does not seem particularly sinful, especially alongside greed or wrath. And the puritanical stance of “idle hands are the devil’s playthings” has a cartoonish, judgy quaintness that’s easy to dismiss. So, sloth is an insufficient depiction.

Sloth’s etymology reveals a more interesting concept. Sloth is a translation of the Latin acedia, borrowed from the Greek akḗdeia, based on kêdos, meaning “care,” and the prefix a-, “without.”¹ Therefore, acedia means “without care.” This absence of care implies a state of indifference that, when sustained, can beget negligence. Like ennui, where a disinterest in life results in a general malaise, acedia is a sin of inaction that leads to self-pity.

Acedia is spiritual numbness. When we succumb to acedia, we forgo our purpose and neglect our responsibilities as citizens, workers, friends, and family members. We stop showing up to our lives and stunt our souls.

The Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Vices — Acedia by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1558

Acedia’s corruptive force is best illustrated by its absence in our language. Acedia faded into sloth, which gave way to laziness. Laziness is hardly sinful since it shares positive connotations of rest and self-care—“lazy Sundays” are an expression of the Biblical Sabbath—in a world obsessed with hustle culture. Each permutation of the concept sheds a layer of its original meaning until it has faded into oblivion. Acedia, the word, is a metaphysical victim of acedia.

The Altar of Pragmatism

The Odyssey is a trove of mythic misadventures: The Blinding of the Cyclops, the Song of the Sirens, and the Land of the Lotus Eaters. When I reread the latter in search of inspiration for this essay, I expected several pages to reflect its significance. Yet, a mere stanza is dedicated to the Lotus Eaters.²

TL; DR: They ate some lotus and did nothing.

Such is a life afflicted by acedia—passivity is bland and unnoteworthy. For the narrative sticking power of the epic, Homer had no choice but to drag Odysseus’s crew back to their ship.

In Dante’s Purgatorio, souls seeking redemption must ascend a mountain of sin.³ On the fourth terrace of Mount Purgatory resides the apathetic souls whose carelessness in life led to eternal sadness. As they slouch in the dirt, the souls must mourn to overcome acedia. Mourning is a deeply emotional process, the unsexy and miserable sister of love. But in mourning, the soul atones for the affection it withheld in life.

Under the spell of acedia, we are shrouded from the light of joy, satisfaction, or fulfillment. To break from this torpor, we need an intense, unbridled burst of energy. We need passion!

While zealous love may have been acceptable in Pre-Renaissance Florence, our culture approaches passion with skepticism. Almost any self-help book worth its merit will claim that “following your passion” is a trap:

“Passion is just an emotion—it won’t pay your bills.”

“Skills create passion, not the other way around.”

“Don’t rely on passion—rely on a system.”

“Find meaning outside of work, not in it.”

The advice is sound. The anti-passion movement intends to steer people toward sensible life choices, what Arthur Brooks calls “resume virtues”⁴—focusing on skill-building, developing healthy habits, and making prudent financial decisions—to survive in a post-capitalistic society. However, the second-order consequence of anti-passion rhetoric is that people may sacrifice things like purpose and love at the altar of pragmatism.

We know what paves the road to hell. Setting aside practicality's good intentions, we can reconsider passion's place in our lives. Only after Dante embraced chaotic love did he free himself of acedia. Perhaps our skepticism keeps us trapped on the fourth terrace.

Passion as Exorcism

Steven Pressfield, an author who didn’t publish a novel until his early fifties, outlined a strategy for pursuing passion in The War of Art.⁵ Pressfield began by separating the amateur from the professional. An amateur—from the French, meaning “one who loves”—behaves sporadically and chaotically, for they are at the mercy of their passions. The professional is their stoic foil—showing up daily, engaging in steady and predictable effort. This advice aligns with the anti-passion argument, seemingly promoting the drudgery of a working stiff, but Pressfield’s solution is founded on a critical nuance: Passion is the starting point. The love of something is what inspires work in the first place. Passion is the why, and professionalism—consistency, diligence, discipline—is the how. The force that delays progress on our novels, business plans, marathon training, and that essential but uncomfortable conversation, Pressfield names Resistance. Resistance is acedia.

Acedia sedates us, and passion is the antidote if we take it seriously and put in the work. Passion need not assume the form of a career, artistic endeavor, or romantic pursuit. We can find this love by showing up—at our jobs, in our communities, and within our families. There are endless opportunities to create goodness if we allow ourselves to care. It’s February, the month of love, and it’s time to reinvigorate our passions.

Exorcise the Noonday Demon by resurrecting your resolutions.

1. “Acedia,” Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2025

2. The Odyssey by Homer, 3^rd Century BC.

3. Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, 1321.

4. The Road to Character by Arthur Brooks, 2015.

5. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, 2011.