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by camjohnson26 2013 days ago
Distraction from mortality is actually a recurring point of discussion in Pascal’s writing.

“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”

2 comments

On this face of it and without reading any of the other writings, this just sounds totally meaningless to me. Is the belief that true meaning or purpose in life can come only from within? What about your own thoughts are so sacred that everything else should be considered a distraction from them?
To add onto this, what do you think you're doing when you're not in a room all alone with your thoughts? You're still thinking. It's not like I can't watch a YouTube video and think to myself at the same time.

I think the aversion I have to being alone with my thoughts is the feeling that doing that won't help me. It's sort of like a neural network that I'd alone with its weights with no inputs to process except itself. I feel when I think to myself alone, I can't make any decisions because what I know is already what I knew before I started thinking to myself. Yo make decisions, I need external answers to questions. I need new information and evidence to start me to some conclusion.

In my opinion it's in fact the main point but I think this is partially lost in translation, divertissement meaning more than just distraction.