nstgiagirl

There are three specific antidotes — social, intellectual, and spiritual — to these pathologies that can help us reclaim our agency.

Antidote 1: Effective Rites of Passage (Social)

Rites of passage that are embodied and communal are essential. They should start in the family, but our education system is a natural place to rethink our approach. New rites are going to have to break students away from the technological milieu and show them new ways of living. They will have to make them say, as effective rites of passage do: I will never be the same again.

Wyoming Catholic College, a small school in Lander, Wyoming, initiates every new freshman with a twenty-one-day experience in the backcountry — phone-free. Olivia Jones, a 2022 graduate, reflected: “How do you know something’s effect on your life if you’ve never lived life without it?”

The problem is not smartphones alone but what they prevent or hinder, such as the ability to embark on and complete real, embodied rites of passage. If students won’t willingly give up their phones in ordinary life, they must be drawn into something more compelling, such as the promise of deep, lasting relationships that could shape the rest of their lives.

Antidote 2: Replacing Curiositas with Studiositas (Mind)

Curiositas is the restless pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. In contrast, the virtue that medieval thinkers called studiositas offers a way back. Studiositas is a virtue that helps govern our desire for knowledge. It directs knowledge toward the highest and best ends.

One promising trend is the rise of small, intentional learning communities that put this virtue into practice. They’re often made up of five to fifteen adults who come together to study a topic in depth. These aren’t casual book clubs or discussion groups — they’re structured efforts to explore complex ideas over time: the roots of liberal democracy, the history of scientific revolutions, the evolution of architecture, the writings of a major philosopher. What makes these groups distinct is not what they study, but how they study — slowly, deliberately, with a desire to connect what they’re learning to how they live.

Antidote 3: Combating Acedia with Leisure (Spirit)

I have to be honest: The weapons that have been most effective in my personal battle against acedia have been prayer, fasting, and asceticism. I’ve tried, and failed, too many times to overcome it without them. I realize that many readers might not believe in the efficacy of those spiritual practices, and might be unready or unwilling to try them — so I’m going to suggest something fundamental that is more universal.

One powerful antidote to acedia is the practice of good leisure. Leisure is not idleness or mere relaxation; it’s the act of being fully present without productive ends to measure everything by. It is a way of receiving life as a gift rather than a series of tasks to complete, or a set of problems to solve.

Learning how to do leisure well begins with small things: setting aside time to enjoy a meal without distraction, organizing a surprise celebration for a friend who had a minor win at work, or listening closely to an acquaintance without thinking about the next thing you want to say.

Leisure can also mean reclaiming one day of rest each week as a sacred time of celebration, not just recovery from work.

South Island, New Zealand