serves to distract our attention from our mortality, finitude, and failures—realities that are difficult to face.73 Pascal exposes diversion as an attempt to escape reality, and an indication of something unstable in the human condition. An obsession with entertainment is, for Pascal, “revelatory of a moral and spiritual malaise begging for an adequate explanation.”74 As Groothius points out, the compulsive search for diversion is often an attempt to escape the wretchedness of life.75 Pain or trials