The world surrounds us with distractions. Television is a particularly sinister form, and I’m only lately coming to realize its actual power over people. Try sitting in a room with a television on and doing something else - something like read a book or (as I’ve often tried) writing.
It doesn’t work. We are drawn to it - it stimulates us more than most other readily accessible forms of entertainment. What happens to a person when he slowly comes to realize how much he truly has been distracted by television? An awaking, a stripping away of a life he thought he had, a dawning of the futility of his own existence. Imagine living a life, and only towards the end discovering that all the memories, all the hopes and dreams, were all borrowed paraphernalia, all loaned to you from the entertainment industry. And imagine realizing that the only true person to blame is yourself - you permitted yourself to spend a life in a semi-hypnotic trace, and it’s much too late to reverse the effects.
Distraction… it is a cornerstone of our society, a foundation of an entire industry.