Until I accepted this assignment, if I had been spontaneously challenged to list all seven deadly sins, sloth would probably have been the one I would have forgotten. “Oh yeah, and sloth.” As a workaholic, I had no intuitive understanding of sloth at all.

So I posted an ad in the “household services” section of Craigslist titled CASH FOR SLOTHS: JUST LET ME TALK TO YOU, offering coffee and three hundred dollars in cash to anybody who identified as a sloth and was willing to be interviewed for an hour.

Meetings with the first few respondents were not productive. The first was definitely a sloth, but he had very little to say about his life. I asked him a few questions, and he kind of trembled with his iced coffee. When I gave him twenty bucks and said he could go, he seemed to relax, but he didn’t get up to leave. So I did.

The second showed up thirty-five minutes late to the Starbucks in Glendale, where we’d agreed to meet, ordered a venti mocha double-whip frappuccino, then took it to the ladies’ room. I took this way too personally. I waited for ten minutes, got really upset, and left.

What follows is my conversation with the third and final respondent.

OTTESSA MOSHFEGH: What’s it like sitting around doing nothing all day?

SLOTH: People ask me this question all the time, not out of any kind of curiosity about me, specifically, but because they want to know if they’re missing out on something. “Should I give up? Or am I right to keep struggling?” You know: “I work so hard, I’m so tired, and I’m not getting anywhere.”

O.M.: And what do you tell those people who come to you, asking if they should give up on their lives?

S.: Oh, I just say something like “Don’t worry, your life is so meaningless already. If you decided to be a sloth at this age, it wouldn’t matter at all.”

O.M.: And are they surprised by your answer?

S.: They’re surprised because they all think I must be stupid. They expect me to use very few words when I speak, like an idiot. Like the laziest moron. “Oh, hm, huh, I don’t know, I don’t care, whatever.” But that’s the thing. I’m much smarter than the average person. I’m at least forty percent more intelligent, I’d say. People are also surprised that I put so much energy into how I express myself. I’m not some murky puddle oozing between the floorboards. I’m a conscious human. I have had a life. I was born, just like you. I grew. I became who I am. And I’m perfectly committed to my way of being. Sure, there are some slobs among us, but that does not describe me. At least insofar as how I wish to be perceived.

O.M.: I’m surprised that your image concerns you.

S.: Image is everything. Even for a sloth.

O.M.: How so?

S.: Do I look like someone you’d ask for help if your dog ran away?

O.M.: Let me think about that.

S.: People also think sloths are stupid because we’re good at pretending to be stupid. So that people will leave us alone. “No, don’t go over and ask so-and-so for help. He’s such an idiot.”

But back to your first question about “doing nothing.” For the record, because I think this needs to be stated plainly, once and for all: it is impossible to do nothing. You can try to do nothing, but already, you’re doing something by trying to do nothing.

O.M.: So the sloth stereotype of the couch potato is inaccurate?

S.: It’s not necessarily inaccurate, it’s reductive. Yes, I know some sloths who are lazy. I also know sloths who work eighty-hour weeks. What makes a sloth a sloth is not the time he spends inactive, per se, but his commitment to being non-committal. Some of the most powerful people alive are enormous sloths. Almost every celebrity you can think of is a sloth. I might argue that you can’t succeed in any meaningful way if you do not exercise some degree of sloth in your life. Having a singular, self-interested ambition, in and of itself, is already pretty slothy.

O.M.: Are you saying that sloth is an expression of selfishness?

S.: Not quite. A selfish person wants things and expends a lot of energy trying to get and keep those things: money; attention; power; revenge; love; control. Most energetic people are profoundly selfish. Their selfishness activates them to keep going. Pay attention the next time you’re speaking to someone you might describe as “lively” and “dynamic.” I guarantee you that he is not listening to anything you’re saying. He’s not processing your words to build a more comprehensive understanding of who you are. He’s just waiting for his turn to speak.

The sloth’s selfishness is different. I might not care, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand. Still, nothing you might say will persuade me to take action, to change.

O.M.: So there’s nothing anybody could tell you to inspire you to transform?

S.: No. This is why sloths function best in co-dependent scenarios. My girlfriend, for example, is also a sloth. But she is of the martyr variety of sloth. That means she will consistently attune herself to the wants and needs of the most compromised person in her midst. She does not do this out of selflessness or love. She does it because her obsession with me keeps her tethered down and away from the world outside of our house. She has no time or opportunity to do anything but to attend to me. This is a common feature of female sloths. Appearing idle is particularly dangerous for a woman. She’ll be picked off as easy prey if she doesn’t appear busy, or at least crazy. But with me, she’s safe.

O.M.: What kind of sloth are you?

S.: I’m a Know-It-All Sloth. I take no interest in the world because I know it’s a waste of my time. Given any opportunity to act, I will immediately and cleverly neutralize any possible incentive to do so. My type pairs very well with the Martyr Sloth because she is tireless in her offerings. She spends all day thinking of ways to make me happy. And I spend all day refusing to respond.

O.M.: How did the two of you meet?

S.: We met at a party thrown by mutual friends. Neither of us wanted to be there. She spent most of it in the kitchen pretending to clean up, and I’d been standing in the backyard pretending to smoke a cigarette, just to get away for a minute. At some point she wandered outside and we started talking. Mostly we complained about the party together. Then she drove me home.

O.M.: And then what happened?

S.: Nothing happened. She was there, and then she kept being there. It was perfect. There was no grand seduction, no games. Every now and then one of us entertains the idea of leaving, but we’re never particularly motivated to do so.

O.M.: Are you happy?

S.: Is anyone actually happy? No. But we’re stable.

O.M.: Okay, maybe a better question is whether you feel either of you is really growing in the relationship.

S.: Everybody talks about growth as though it’s a virtue. Trees grow. So do tumors. Growth does not interest me.

O.M.: Okay. In the parable of the talents, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the story of a servant who buries his master’s money out of laziness and fear. The master calls him a “wicked and slothful servant.” What do you think of that?

S.: See, that’s my point. Holding your cash in a savings account is not a sin. If our economy were ruled by only benevolent forces, maybe we’d have something to talk about.

O.M.: In this case, I think the metaphor is that the master represents God, and the money represents God’s gifts.

S.: You know what people say about gifts. You should give without expectation. Otherwise it’s not a gift, it’s a transaction. And I have no interest in getting caught up in some kind of narcissistic dog and pony show.

O.M.: Should sloth be a sin?

S.: Since you mentioned the Bible, maybe you know that it does not specifically name sloth as a sin, not in the way most people think. The Book of Proverbs mentions a sluggard a few times. “Go to the ant, sluggard”—you know it?

O.M.: I don’t.

S.: 

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

It’s all very lightweight, considering the vast horror of what “capital S” sin means to a good member of the Church. The suggestion that any human being take notes on how to live his life by looking at a tiny ant is ridiculous. Even the fattest kings know that accomplishments require effort of some sort. Then there’s the proverb about the guy who doesn’t take care of his crops and the crops die:

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;
And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.

It’s pretty obvious what happened there, right? The dumb, lazy farmer is to blame for his own misfortune. I think these parables are really about vilifying poverty. Because that’s bad for Church business.

O.M.: I take it you’re not a fan of Christianity?

S.: Meh. There’s a lot I can appreciate. There’s so much gorgeous poetry in religion. Just look at the proverbs about the sluggard, which I’m using as lame examples. Both are followed by this beautiful refrain:

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

It’s genius. Those little fragments, this list, a little this, a little that, lets the sluggard off the hook. He sounds childishly innocent. The meter sounds like a nursery rhyme or a song; it hypnotizes you. And the portrait is not a condemnation of slothfulness as some enormous vice. There is no debauchery or violence here, just a sequence of cute concessions. “A little sleep. A little slumber. A little folding of the hands.” That first line almost nods off, it’s lovely.

And then the second line terrifies you in its grandiosity. The effect is cinematic. We move from someone dozing off in an armchair to the appearance of a threatening figure emerging on the horizon. The image has the irrational grandeur of a nightmare or a horror film. The sluggard has been asleep so long that his consequences have taken physical form.

Its phrasing is meant to make you feel stupid. “Poverty” is a literal monster, the thing that should be feared most because life depends on one’s resources. Yet the metaphorical threat is far more immediately felt. The delay itself is meant to keep you in the dark at first. How will poverty arrive? Like it’s been coming for you the whole time. And it’s bringing along its mean friend “want.” And that guy’s packing heat for some reason.

But I’m not “shivering me timbers.” Truly, even a sloth knows that the result of an action or inaction is a “consequence.” That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take a nap whenever I want to.

O.M.: If we all lived as you live, wouldn’t the world fall apart?

S.: Maybe the world as we know it would fall apart. The systems would degrade, at least. But doesn’t that seem inevitable anyway? Especially according to the Church, where every baby is born a sinner. That idea is a part of the system. The power of Jesus’s self-sacrifice depends on it. This is also why the idea of a Second Coming is so hotly debated. To suggest that the next Jesus might be on his way undoes the sanctity and finality of the Christian faith. But again, I think all of this has a lot to do with money. If every baby’s born a sinner, everyone’s a customer. Cash flows on and on.

O.M.: May I ask what you do for a living?

S.: I invest in A.I.

O.M.: That’s the opposite of burying your savings account in your backyard.

S.: Everyone has bills to pay.

O.M.: Right. But artificial intelligence is all about innovation, disruption, progress. Some might say that doesn’t sound particularly slothful.

S.: Artificial intelligence is the most slothful invention in human history. Human beings have spent thousands of years trying to avoid doing things. That’s what civilization is. The wheel was invented because carrying things is tiring and annoying. Agriculture was invented because wandering around looking for berries takes a long time, and it’s annoying. The washing machine was invented because scrubbing clothes by hand is annoying. Every technological advancement is essentially a machine for avoiding effort.

You call it innovation. I call it delegation. The entire history of civilization is one long attempt to convince somebody or something else to do the work. What makes A.I. special is that for the first time, people are trying to outsource the one thing they used to consider uniquely human: thinking.

O.M.: Is A.I. intellectual sloth?

S.: It’s aspirational sloth. Nobody downloads an app because they secretly want more work. They get it because they want less work. Every advertisement for every technology product ever created can be reduced to the same promise: “Soon you won’t have to do this anymore.” As a sloth, I love it. Humanity is finally getting honest about what it wants.

O.M.: And what does humanity want?

S.: To sit in a comfortable chair while somebody else worries about everything.

O.M.: I’m sorry, but that’s absurd.

S.: Is it? Half the people you know want someone else to raise their children. The other half want someone else to write their emails.

O.M.: That’s not true.

S.: Okay, fine. But most people would happily outsource exercise, friendship, decision-making, and grief if they could find an app for it.

O.M.: Exercise, maybe.

S.: I think you’re missing my point. Humankind thinks it’s in an existential crisis because we are all trying to believe something we know cannot be true, namely that there is a larger purpose to our lives, that there is a God. This has always been the case. Or else why try so hard to have faith and be faithful? It should be effortless. But it isn’t. Because life is meaningless. Just accept that and relax. That’s what I say.

O.M.: Do you ever feel depressed?

S.: Of course I feel depressed. I’m a human being. But so what? The reason depression has been so vilified is that when people are depressed, they complain. That’s part of the experience. And it’s symbiotic. Having to listen to someone talk about his melancholy is how human beings develop the ability to endure torture. Nothing wrong with any of this. Unless you’re trying to build an empire. Depressed people don’t make great slaves. This is why the early Christians pathologized depression. They called it acedia. In Latin, the word means “without care.” Essentially, it’s indifference. Which is, by design, a completely neutral state. You could even say it is, in fact, neutrality itself.

Acedia was first used to describe what happened to desert monks during the long hours of the day, between morning prayers and evening prayers, when a monk would be struck by a peculiar darkness. And how could he not? Imagine having to pray all day every day. Oh my God, I’d rather kill myself. These poor guys were going crazy. Their lives were the same day repeated over and over again until they died. I guess that is what faith is, in a sense: consistency. Anyway, the monk would find himself staring out the window, feeling adrift, empty, disconnected. And so the Church saw an opportunity to make people fear their own dark moods. They turned it into some kind of terrible phenomenon and called this affliction the Noonday Demon. Struck by it, a monk would begin to question not only his faith or his purpose but the very idea of purposefulness itself. He would wonder whether such a thing could even exist. He might decide to leave the monastery altogether.

A monk—someone with, it could be argued, more faith than the average person, enough faith to have devoted his entire worldly existence to the service of God—would suddenly become dramatically and completely uninterested in everything that had once motivated him. It is a terrifying idea, sure. But it’s not a sin. I think that’s really unfair. Feeling like you’re losing your mind, questioning everything: this is a perfectly reasonable function of human consciousness. It is not a moral failure.

O.M.: That restlessness and misery, is that not what you feel, being alienated and, some might say, paralyzed, as a sloth? Do you ever get lonely?

S.: This is a good question. I think you’d have much more sympathy for me if you saw me suffering from loneliness. The most effective way to avoid loneliness is also the most devastating: live a life without love. You might give that some thought later tonight, on your drive home to your family.

O.M.: And has that worked for you?

S.: Of course not. That’s the tragedy. Everybody assumes that sloths are pursuing comfort. We aren’t. Comfort is just the consolation prize. We’re really pursuing immunity.

O.M.: Immunity from what?

S.: Disappointment. Humiliation. Grief. Regret. The usual things.

O.M.: And you’ve achieved that?

S.: Of course not. But as much as other people will strive to be loved, to find love and keep it, to convince people to love them or whatever, I can just efficiently avoid it altogether.

O.M.: What about your girlfriend?

S.: Oh no, that’s not a love thing. Thank God.

O.M.: Most people would consider love a good thing.

S.: Most people have a very selective memory about love. They remember the attraction. The fantasy. The feeling that another person can justify your existence.

O.M.: So your solution is simply not to need love?

S.: My solution is to pretend I don’t.

O.M.: Is there a difference?

S.: An enormous difference. The truly enlightened person needs nothing. I have merely arranged my psychology and my lifestyle so that my need for love remain hypothetical. I don’t pursue love, period.

O.M.: That sounds lonely.

S.: No. Loneliness is what happens after love. Without love, you don’t know loneliness. Your life might be very lonely in a practical way, but if you don’t know any better, you’re fine. You’re unbothered.

O.M.: I always thought of love as a biological need.

S.: Yeah, society trains you to think that way. Because capitalism is all about attachment. But you can live without love. It’s hard to conceive of it, but take it moment by moment. Do you feel loved each second of your life?

O.M.: Let’s say I don’t.

S.: And you’re still breathing. Your heart is still pumping. All your biological functions are functioning just fine. Maybe your stress levels are off, I don’t know. I’m saying that loneliness is just a feeling. A kid playing by himself isn’t lonely. A monk in a cave isn’t necessarily lonely. A person reading a book in a quiet room isn’t lonely. Loneliness starts with an attachment. It’s the sensation of that attachment being threatened, compromised, or broken.

O.M.: Were you born a sloth?

S.: No. Nobody is born a sloth. Babies are love fanatics. Look at the way they just throw themselves at the mercy of the world. Until they grow up to know better than to do that, everyone is their mommy. Little kids fall in love constantly with dumb stuff. With trains, horses, planets, cartoons, whatever. If an adult got that excited about some random thing, it would look like psychosis. And it is psychotic. Kids believe every friendship will last forever. They’re so full of hope and trust, it’s preposterous. They’re constantly exposing themselves to disappointment.

People will disappoint you, no matter how much you love them. That’s what we do to each other. We leave, we die, we lie. Somebody doesn’t love you back. Or somebody loves you incorrectly. Eventually you discover that attachment carries risk. Some people respond by becoming braver. Others respond by becoming sloths. Call me a coward, I don’t care. I’m fine with that. I’m fine with being a sloth if that means taking the easier, softer way. If you have no expectations, you can’t be disappointed. And if you take me as I am, you’ll know not to expect anything of me either.