Dancing with the Stars Thriller

"If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it." Pascal



The headline on the internet news page screamed "Dancing with the Stars Thriller". Turns out a television show - Dancing with the Stars - which pairs celebrities with professional dancers in a 'dance off' single elimination contest each week, had paid tribute to that earstwhile humanitarian and chimp deserter Michael Jackson. I guess they used the king of pop's tunes to stage the dances. I'm guessing because I don't watch the show. I also don't watch the shows about who can lose the most weight or who can survive longest ingesting snails or who can swap families and live happily ever after ad infinitum et nauseum.

There's distraction and there's distraction. Personally, I'd rather enjoy my own personal distraction, (e.g. sipping a good scotch while being transported to heaven's gate by a Beethoven symphony), than living vicariously through some obese fellow's distraction of getting his stomach stapled so he can shed some ugly pounds. Off with his head. A lot easier.

True, Pascal was a bit gloomy at times..."Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest,without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he faces his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. And at once there wells up from the depths of his soul boredom, gloom, depression, chagrin, resentment, despair."

You get the picture. But all is not lost. Pascal was not a killjoy. He recognized we weakling humans needed diversion some of the time.

I just prefer a more personalized kind. Not the empty headed, screeched filled lunacy of the babbling masses.