(August 14, 2023 at 2:27 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: How do you stave off the ennui and boredom?
There's another category that might be relevant here.
People used to talk about acedia. Unfortunately this usually gets translated as "sloth," which is very misleading.
It's not laziness or boredom, but might be a consequence of one or the other.
It's about giving up, not caring anymore. Like "who cares if I do a shit job because we all die anyway?" It's giving up on any kind of ambition, including getting better emotionally, spiritually, socially.
In the US now they talk about "deaths of despair," which are cases where people just give up on life and let themselves die. Sit on the couch, self-medicate, and play video games until your body gives out.
(Since faith and hope are Christian virtues, and states of acedia lack these two, it was classified as a Christian sin, but we don't have to think of it that way.)
But I think pep talks ("just go back to school!") seldom help. The only way I can think of to treat this is social. Non-capitalist means of connecting to others and working toward something meaningful.
