Word of the Day: abulia

abulia (n)

A symptom of a mental disorder involving inability to make decisions or a loss of volition.

"What is lacking to Marcelle in her abulia is the 'mental synthesis' required to represent to herself the act of picking up a pencil."
--Paul Bishop, Jung in Contexts: A Reader

I can't decide what I want to say about abulia.... Actually, I can: I think it's a pretty common affliction. I know I dither over, for example, whether to buy raspberry or blackberry jam at the supermarket. (First-world problems!)

Last night, I was watching Hamlet on PBS (the Royal Shakespeare production -- which was fantastic), a play that is all about abulia ("To be or not to be..."), and couldn't decide whether to switch channels to the new Twin Peaks rip-off called Happy Town. I can't decide if I should tell you what I decided -- which probably tells you something.

Abulia, by the way, is one of the words that the late David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary.