I remembered in the middle of the night the medieval disease of Acedia, in which the Benedictine monk succumbs to a form of listlessness and torpor, unable to work or pray; and looked it up this morning to check that it was indeed, as I had thought, the disease we are all suffering from collectively, unable to focus or concentrate because of the state of the world and the lack of motivation to complete tasks – ‘the noonday demon’ as it was described.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
At Last an answer.
It wasn’t Glandular Fever or Naughtimonkitis I caught at Ampleforth but Accidie!
Let’s hope that clever Dr Gilbert is working on vaccine?
My daughter is a psychotherapist and said to me right at the beginning that the base conditions for trauma of lack of control over one’s life and uncertainty about the future were going to be present world-wide. A world in trauma.
I am watching as she copes with her own feelings and those of her clients with whom she is working remotely.
But Nature is alive and well and the sun is so good.
Yes, it’s astonishing that we have had day after day of the most wonderful sunshine, as if nature is defying the disease. Charles
The perfect description. We are both healthy and have been busy with many things but yet feel this background angst that will not leave.
Yes, it’s an irrational, but persistent anxiety – well, not that irrational given the state of the world. Greetings to you both ! Charles
Isn’t it part of the human condition, melancholia?
Isn’t melancholia darker than accedia – a form of depression, the demons inside us, whereas accedia is more of form of psychological paralysis ? Different humours, probably. Charles