I’ll add it. How do you rate your experience with it? (Breaking a massive fit of paralysis definitely counts as something people would find useful, so it does count here.)
I’ll give it a plus 5, since it really was important for me.
However, it looks as though most of the people who’ve posted in this thread either don’t have self-hatred problems as severe as mine—they seem to already model akrasia as a bad current habit rather than as a fundamental defect, though I leave the possibility open that there’s some fundamental defect premises leading to the tendency to let time drift by rather than doing things which would be more useful or more fun.
I haven’t read all the amazon reviews of Acedia and Me, but those I have read reviewed it as a combination of history and memoir. None of them seemed to get any personal good out of it.
Having been very Catholic for a good chunk of my life, I tended to categorize my akrasia in the “fundamental defect” category up until about last year. Seeing it as something lots of smart people struggle with was helpful, as was seeing the ‘engineering’ model of correcting it as opposed to the ‘strength of character’ model.
Anyhow, don’t worry about skewing the average by giving your honest experience. Nobody’s results are perfectly typical.
I’ll add it. How do you rate your experience with it? (Breaking a massive fit of paralysis definitely counts as something people would find useful, so it does count here.)
I’ll give it a plus 5, since it really was important for me.
However, it looks as though most of the people who’ve posted in this thread either don’t have self-hatred problems as severe as mine—they seem to already model akrasia as a bad current habit rather than as a fundamental defect, though I leave the possibility open that there’s some fundamental defect premises leading to the tendency to let time drift by rather than doing things which would be more useful or more fun.
I haven’t read all the amazon reviews of Acedia and Me, but those I have read reviewed it as a combination of history and memoir. None of them seemed to get any personal good out of it.
It isn’t a how-to book.
Having been very Catholic for a good chunk of my life, I tended to categorize my akrasia in the “fundamental defect” category up until about last year. Seeing it as something lots of smart people struggle with was helpful, as was seeing the ‘engineering’ model of correcting it as opposed to the ‘strength of character’ model.
Anyhow, don’t worry about skewing the average by giving your honest experience. Nobody’s results are perfectly typical.
I wasn’t so much concerned about skewing the results as that the scale didn’t fit my experience.
The book might be more likely to be useful for people with Catholic backgrounds.