This is third issue of The Groove, and the third of four email entries exploring the Seven Deadly Sins in art, culture, creativity, and business. If you missed the first one on Lust, you can read it here and the second one on Gluttony and Greed here.

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THE GROOVE ISSUE 3 - THE REMARKABLY CREATIVE AND PROFITABLE SIDE OF SLOTH AND ENVY

Ramiro Fernandez Sous, Sloth, 2018, Oil on canvas. — Ramiro Fernandez Sous, *Sloth*, 2018, Oil on canvas.

What can we say about the sin of sloth and creativity? Is sloth really a prevalent sin in a world that is plagued with workaholism and since the advent of the smartphones has spared almost no one in the quest for efficiency and zero downtime?

In ancient Greece, the word for sloth was acedia and it meant “lack of care”. Homer writes about acedia in The Iliad to refer to soldiers who didn’t care and left Hector’s body dishonored in the camp of the Acheans.

John the Ascetic, the Christian monk who translated the Greek list of Deadly Sins ca. 420, used the Latin term tristitia, which mean something like “indifference”. But eventually acedia was a word used in Latin too. Mental and spiritual acedia is a lack of feeling for the self or for another. It’s apathy, inertia, and existential boredom. Physically, it refers to laziness, idleness, and indolence. Failing to act when you should is also considered the sin of sloth.

James Ensor, an influential Belgian painter and printmaker, explored the Seven Deadly Sins in a series of drawings and prints created in the early 1900s. The one corresponding to sloth shows a scene in a bedroom where a messy couple half-asleep are still in bed even when the clock above their heads marks that is 1:00 pm. Outside their window, several farmers are diligently working on the land.

In literature, French novelist Gustav Flaubert wrote an entire account of existential boredom in his critically and commercially successful 1856 novel Madame Bovary. The book is the story of its eponymous character who is bored with her provincial life and nothing gives her joy: not marrying a well-to-do man, neither giving birth to a healthy baby, much less moving to a different town. Eventually her boredom leads Madame Bovary to commit adultery (lust) and to spend beyond her means (greed), later committing suicide after finding herself trapped in debt.

Michael Craig-Martin, Sloth (as part of the Deadly Sins), 2008, screenprint on paper. — Michael Craig-Martin, *Sloth* (as part of the Deadly Sins), 2008, screenprint on paper.

In the world of media and entertainment, sloth is a good starting point to create interesting, stereotypical characters. Garfield and Homer Simpson represent the epitome of laziness. The Coen Brothers’ 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski revolves around the sin of sloth. It’s main character, Jeff Lebowski, aka “The Dude” played by Jeff Bridges, is the king of slackers: an unemployed hippie who listens to whale sounds on cassette tapes and likes to play bowling in his infinite spare time.

The color green has been associated with envy since Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice in 1599 and mentioned a “green-eyed jealousy” and later in Othello in 1603 referred to envy as a “green-eyed monster”.

The influential French Romantic painter Theodore Gericault painted eight portraits in 1820 as part of a series he called Monomania, representing maladies of the mind. Envy is one of those diseases, depicting the greenish face of an elder woman whose lost gaze in her red and swollen eyes is as frightening as it is compelling. Paul Cadmus’s Envy is a green, long, and thin creature crowned by a snake whose fangs seem to spit a veiled venom that engulfs all of its body.

Sylvie Fleury, ENVY, 2015, blue neon. — Sylvie Fleury, *ENVY*, 2015, blue neon.

Filmmakers love envy, competition, and payback because they know their audiences relate to those feelings. Bridesmaids (2011) directed by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow, became a critical and commercial success grossing $288 million. This is a movie about who, between the maid of honor and one of the bridesmaids, is the bride’s best friend. The plot hinges on the horrible yet hilarious things they do to each other out of envy and spite. Disney’s The Lion King is about how envy drives Scar to kill his brother Mufasa, making Simba believe he is responsible and pushing him to flee into exile so that Scar can take the throne as king.

There are businesses that profit from others’ laziness. Gyms that offer memberships know that half the people won’t show up, so they sell many more memberships than the amount of members they can physically host, making more money off of the lazy ones who won’t use any of the facilities, equipment, or the time of any of the trainers or instructors.

The media in all its forms is always pushing us to “Keep Up with the Joneses”, or worse, with the Kardashians. There’s envy, greed, and the desire to impress people both online and offline. This has fueled a prevalent feeling for many decades that we are never enough. Texas psychologist, professor, and author, Brené Brown tackles the pervasive phenomenon of “never enough” in her 2012 book Daring Greatly. The message must have resonated with readers because the book has sold over 1 million copies since its publication.

James Ensor, Sloth, 1902, hand-colored etching. — James Ensor, *Sloth*, 1902, hand-colored etching.

Contemporary artists have also tackled these two sins in a myriad of ways, because being lazy or being jealous doesn’t seem that big of a transgression anymore. Like Catalan painter Ramiro Fernandez Saus who did an entire series of sins and virtues and whose Sloth painting shows a farmer who fell asleep at work in a hammock with a hose in his hand. Or Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury who since the 1990s has been referencing commerce and the world of luxury goods in her works. One of the neon sculptures she created for an exhibition at Museum Villa Stuck in Munich simply says “Envy”, as it is one of the sins that the fashion industry seems to be most affected (or benefited?) from.

I know it is kind of odd to use these sins as sources for creativity and money. But as long as humans are populating this earth, sloth and envy are two of the sins that most people won’t escape and therefore will identify with, even if slightly. After all, who among us haven’t felt apathetic or envious at some point in our lives?