gluttony

Seven Deadly Landlord Sins

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I’ve been sick lately, and have tried not to push myself in the meantime. Or is it that I haven’t tried to push myself? Perhaps we should ask dtcwee, whose latest post invokes Thomas Aquinas on Gluttony to address the temptation to over-landlord:

It’s the dead of night. I get an email from the agent. It’s a problem, nothing urgent. Yet, I draft and re-draft a reply. I call them to try and work through it, and get agitated when I hit voice mail. I’m getting worked up. I can’t sleep. What if it was something I did? What will be the impact?

That’s not me being diligent. That’s me indulging.

Not in food, but in landlording; another activity that, while in moderation provides sustenance, In excess is simply imprudent.

http://dtcwee.blogspot.com.au/2017/05/landlord-sins-gluttony.html

I’m pretty impressed with this application of gluttony to the temptation to excessive diligence. It’s an excellent moral metaphor, and while I feel there ought to be something in Aquinas that addresses the question directly, trying to find something in the Summa without knowing already what it is in Thomistic terms is a recipe for frustration and a temptation to….excessive diligence.

Life without indulgent eating

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My latest piece at MercatorNet.com confides the inner workings of my gluttonous hedonism:

That the pleasure of eating serves as a surprisingly rich and enticing escape from the dreariness and banality of everyday life proved to me that self-indulgence was not merely a physical dysfunction but a spiritual one. For someone who spends nearly every waking moment thinking about things, the uncomplicated enjoyment of some moreish snack or delectable home-made dish offers a kind of peaceful respite from the interminable whirring of cognition.  Or as the 4th Century ascetic monk John Cassian wrote in rather less affirming terms:

“nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts… but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation.”

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/life-without-indulgent-eating