apathy and inactivity in the practice of virtue (personified as one of the deadly sins).

To Aquinas, the melancholy condition of acedia [from the Greek for "absence of care"] which afflicted solitary Christian monks and hermits - causing them to apathetically shirk work and seek "undue rest" - is a sin. Walter Benjamin noted that acedia had re-emerged, among sophisticated urbanites in 19th century Paris, as ennui; and Aldous Huxley described it as a "subtle and complicated vice," composed of boredom, sorrow, and despair at the futility of everything. It seems that neither an ascetic contemplation of the divine, nor an immersion in the pleasures of the flesh will suffice; one must instead balance these modes of being with care. See: APATHETIC, BORED, ENNUI, DETACHED, SPLEEN.