Reading Pascal

Shit. This quote sums up my entire life.

Let me see if I can explain it. Misery happens in life. When we're miserable, we seek distraction (diversion). So, instead of solving the thing that makes us miserable, we just look the other way because we are "entertained." The emptiness remains. And so we pass empty years, papering over our misery with empty diversions, slowly frittering away our lives until death.

Entertainment can be likened to a drug in this sense. If we weren't constantly entertained, we'd have nothing better to do than be more productive, successful, and thereby happier people. Or at least we'd contemplate the divine mysteries or something.

Threadly reminder Pascal was a heretic.

>>9014611
What do you get in this passage for the moment?

>>9014611
This quote just hit me like a brick. Where is this from?
>>9014781
Care to explain?

>>9014611
that's a cute bird

what kind of bird is it?

People distract themselves from themselves until they die distracted

>>9014611
Reminds me of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe#Philosophy

>>9014796
Lovebird, although this one is particularly qt

>>9014767
>If we weren't constantly entertained, we'd have nothing better to do than be more productive, successful, and thereby happier people. Or at least we'd contemplate the divine mysteries or something.

To me "without this we should be in a state of weariness and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it" seems more of a euphemistic way of saying we would kill ourselves.

Read Baudelaire's Le Voyage and you will understand OP.

>>9014809
I don't get that vibe. A solid means of escape from weariness would probably mean productivity in pursuit of self-actualization.

But I guess they're both answers. Without diversion, you get so miserably bored that you either become a better person or kill yourself. Maybe Pascal considered it a win-win? I know nothing about him, other than his shitty wager.

>>9014821
Is there a translation?

>>9014611
Very meaningful quote. I find it hard to see how you don't understand it unless you're young or English is your second language.

>>9014859

I am quite young and also an alcoholic (actually not kidding about this).

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>>9014794
He was quite vivaciously aligned with the Jansenists, an irritatingly savvy heterodox school.
Essentially, the Pope condemned some propositions in Cornelius Jansen's book Augustinus, which claimed to set forth the teaching of Augustine on some doctrines Jansen thought thad been misrepresented since the middle ages. But Jansen's followers at the Port Royal school AGREED that the propositions were heretical - and that these propositions -weren't what the book said-. So the Pope had to write back and solemnly ex cathedrâ tell them that the doctrines WERE in the book, and that they WERE what the they themselves believed. Now, the Jansenists thought that this was fucking ridiculous: even if the Pope can make infallible statements on doctrine, that doesn't mean he can infallibly tell you that you're denying them when you're not! Or something like that. The whole thing escalated from here.
(The doctrines in question themselves related to grace and free will, which are meaningless concepts in my Spinozist opinon. Apparently the Jansenist opinion resembled the Calvinist.)
Pascal attacked the Jesuits in the Provinical Letters- his other major moral work- and there are bits at the end of the Pensées where he defends his not-absolute obedience to the Pope. (Remember that this is before Vatican I, back when there was a persistent, and very offensive to Rome, belief that Church Councils had a higher authority than the Pope. Look up Galicianism- the French bishops insisted they could ignore the Pope if they wanted to.) The books were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for this.
Pascal himself experienced a miraculous healing, while Jansenist girls apparently could withstand extreme heat & pain in a supernatural manner.
He was a pretty cool guy IMO. One of the main reasons I'm not a Christian.

>>9014867
If you're alcoholic, you understand it more than you think

>>9014880
Thanks for sharing. Any books on church history that you would recommend?

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>>9014938
Most of what I know comes from Wikipedia, or more prominently, the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia.

>>9014852

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-voyage-6/

I guess this works. It's quite complex, but not impossible to read and it's related to your quote.