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Pricked Again By Pensees

In his, Pensées, Pascal discusses the need of many individuals to seek distractions and diversions in life in order to take their minds away from the larger questions of life and death. He writes:

“Their error does not lie in seeking excitement, if they seek it only as a diversion; the evil is that they seek it as if the possession of the objects of their quest would make them really happy. In this respect it is right to call their quest a vain one … And thus, when we take the exception against them, that that they seek with such fervour cannot satisfy them, if they replied – as they should do if they considered the matter thoroughly – that they sought in it only a violent and impetuous occupation which turned their thoughts from self, and that they therefore chose an attractive object to charm and ardently attract them, they would leave their opponents without a reply. But they do not make this reply, because they do not know themselves. Thy do not know that it is the chase, and not the quarry, which they seek”. (Pascal, 1952, p. 197)

Are you constantly seeking and consuming people, places, and things in an attempt to forget about you mortality and your alientation from the one true God, others, and in truth…yourself.

Plato would say of people like you in Laws V: “he sells all that gives the soul its beauty and value for a few paltry pieces of gold; but all the gold upon the earth and all the gold beneath it does not compensate for lack of virtue”. (Plato: The Complete Works, 1997, p. 1411)

Have you considered the words of Christ: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Why not stop striving after the wind and wasting your life?  Why not see the activities in your life for what they are…distractions, diversions, and emptiness? Why not give up your soul to the source of truth, beauty, and goodness- the Living God, Jesus, and be satisfied forever.  



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