( CNN ) -- On a recent trip across America , what surprised me most was the number of people -- over 200 in one city , 80 to 150 elsewhere -- who wanted to discuss this odd word , `` acedia . '' It 's an ancient term signifying profound indifference and inability to care about things that matter , even to the extent that you no longer care that you ca n't care . I liken it to spiritual morphine : You know the pain is there but ca n't rouse yourself to give a damn . The concept of acedia was developed by Christians in the fourth century who had fled to the deserts of the Middle East , opting for a simple life in rebellion against a newly legal , wealthy and politically powerful church . Today , we would say that they went off the grid . These men and women quickly discovered that although they had left material possessions behind , they had n't shed their inner demons . They developed a sophisticated psychology of the `` eight bad thoughts '' that commonly troubled them , the most spiritually devastating of which were acedia , anger and pride . Several centuries later , as the church developed its doctrine of the `` seven deadly sins , '' acedia was tucked into the sin of sloth , and the word disappeared from the common vocabulary . Unless you were a student of monastic history or medieval literature , chances are , you would never encounter it . I wrote my book because I suspected that although the word `` acedia '' is unfamiliar to most of us , its effects are widely known . When I compared the classic descriptions of acedia with the plagues of contemporary society -- a toxic , nearly unbearable mix of boredom and restlessness , frantic escapism ( including that of workaholism ) , commitment-phobia and enervating despair -- I found the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress . Acedia can manifest as either extreme lethargy or hyperactivity , but it is not merely an individual spiritual problem . It affects communities as well . And it was this aspect of acedia that my audiences wanted to discuss . They raised questions about addictions to the Internet and `` virtual reality , '' about fractured families who are so hyper-scheduled that they no longer spend much time together , about the dissonance of living in a society that is the wealthiest in history but whose citizens remain dissatisfied , gobbling up drugs for anxiety , depression and sleep disorders at an alarming rate . In hard economic times , we can lose faith in ourselves and others , and acedia offers a false sense of complacency and security . We can care about celebrities or online `` friends '' more than our neighbors ; we can treat rampant homelessness as just `` the way things are , '' and that relieves us from having to do anything about it . We can keep ourselves so busy that we do n't have time to care , or we can simply drop out of the fight . Acedia feeds on `` compassion fatigue '' and assures us that the world 's problems are so big that we need not trouble ourselves about them . It 's useless to try to change things . If the Christian church has made too much of the vice of pride , which seduces us into thinking too highly of ourselves , it has not made enough of sloth , which allows us to settle for being less than we can be , both as individuals and a society . As the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein wrote in her book `` Sloth , '' `` When you achieve true slothdom , you have no desire for the world to change . ... Better to fall into line than to question the going ethos . '' There is no certain remedy for acedia , any more than for anger and pride . It is part of the human condition . But we can learn to recognize it and resist it when it strikes . A method that was recommended by a Christian monk in the fourth century , and is also a technique employed in current cognitive behavioral therapy , is to `` think about your thoughts . '' When anger comes , or acedia , examine it dispassionately and try to figure out where it is leading you . There is no blame attached to having a `` bad thought , '' because they come to everyone . But we do have some choice in how we respond to them . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Kathleen Norris .
Author : There is profound indifference and inability to care about things that matter . Early Christians listed acedia as one of ` ` eight bad thoughts '' . Norris : Like spiritual morphine ; pain is there , but you ca n't give a damn . No offense , but you must learn to accept it and resist it .