diversions

When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being know and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, exploring and experiencing whatever vanity fair has to offer. In retrospect all of these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called “licking the earth.” They are diversions, designed to distract our attention from the true purpose of our existence in this world, which is, quite simply: to look for God, an, in looking, to find Him, and, having found Him, to love Him, thereby establishing a harmonious relationship with His purposes for His creation.  (emphasis added)

Malcolm Muggeridge