The modern word for sloth is laziness. In the old days, religion classed laziness a sin because “The devil makes work for idle hands”. In other words, if we’re bored, we could end up doing really bad things.
To counteract this sin, the church leaders adopted a strategy of work… usually relentless, repetitive, hard work. It’s yet another example of “either/or” consciousness. If something is bad, then its opposite must be good, therefore “Don’t be Lazy… Be Productive!”
We are now moving towards the “both/and” Quantum world. We may not like it but scientists have proven that 99.9% of everything is energy. It’s not our behaviour that drives the outcome, it’s the energy driving the behaviour that determines the result.
Endless productivity without pausing to reflect, dream, or imagine, can lead either to burnout or life as an automaton. On the other hand, if laziness is driven by fear of taking action or a lack of passion in the heart, it can lead to a downward spiral of apathy, self-hatred, and guilt. Obviously this little energy whirlpool makes it difficult to get into Flow.
We may no longer believe that the devil will take over our limbs, forcing us to do bad things, but when we’re unproductive, we imagine ourselves poor, homeless, or unpopular (obviously this is the least creative use of our imagination).
This makes us rush to the opposite extreme. We buy books with titles like How to Be Your Best Self! How to Make This Your Best Year Ever! How to Smash the Living Daylights out of Life Itself!
Energy doesn’t lie. It sees right through this bullshit strategy.
Once churches became increasingly empty, new-age spirituality arrived on the scene. Their Bible was “The law of attraction”. Do less, attract more. Doing nothing is good, if it’s called Being Present. “I’m not lazy, I’m manifesting here!”
This led to lots of books on Abundance and Letting Go (Get whatever you want so you can get rid of it as fast as possible!) If metaphysical means beyond the physical, it’s quite strange, that there are so many books about metaphysics. The new age is full of ironies.
We are all born with boundless energy. We don’t have to motivate young children to move. It’s a struggle to get them to stay still. Children do things “for no good reason” but somewhere on the way to adulthood, we start living in our head… literally the Headquarters of Reason. We start to equate “busy” with “important”.
Embracing our inner sloth can heal our destination addiction – the endless pursuit of a tomorrow that never arrives.
Flow happens when we move from the duality of either/or to the holism of both/and.
Instead of Productive or Lazy, we’re productive when we’re inspired AND lazy when we need to dream or exercise our imagination.
Flow happens when we get the energy right rather than the behaviour right.
We’re not productive because we’re trying to gain value, recognition, or proof of our worthiness, we’re productive because we’re inspired. We’re not lazy because we lack focus, passion, or motivation, we’re lazy because wonder and magic can arrive in the pauses between things.
Einstein used this strategy. He would work hard, then switch to his imagination. The theory of relativity came to him in a daydream. Newton also spent hours in the laboratory, but the theory of gravity arrived while he was sitting under an apple tree.
A complete lack of inspiration is usually a sign that we’re cut off from our source energy. Instead of attacking our laziness, we could treat it with kindness. We’re not a loser, we’re just disconnected from the Mother-ship… like George Clooney in Gravity. Things aren’t good, but we have a killer smile and a happy song.
This strategy is more likely to get us off the couch than self-hatred. Sloths love a smile and a silly love song.