Tuesday a.m.

I'm going to make a doctor's appointment today. I didn't get seriously ill Monday, but I continued to have some problems.

---

I spent some time pondering what I wrote about happiness versus distraction from unhappiness. I think I had picked up on this notion before, only with different terminology.

The founding fathers wrote about 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness' in the Declaration of Independence. But we don't pursue happiness -- I mean all of us as a nation and a culture -- we don't pursue happiness as much as we run from unhappiness.

A big story this past week has been the long lines of people lining up to buy Playstation 3 game consoles. Sony has done what Microsoft did with the Xbox 360, which is to let a relatively meager number of units trickle into the supply channel to generate 'heat' and demand for the Christmas shopping season. The media will do its part, of course, by reporting this totally fabricated shortage as if it were the real thing. (Did you know Sony CEO Howard Stringer was once the line producer for 'The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather'?) We've already seen video of the long lines and the ridiculous markups for the game on Ebay. Later comes the perennial Christmas list of 'must-have' gifts with the PS3 at or near the top.

What is the PS3 other than the current ultimate escape from unhappiness -- this season's most desired distraction from a reality which is never sexy enough, dramatic enough or exciting enough to live up to the expectations we've all had created for us by our media?

But it seems to me now that -- at least speaking for myself -- damn near everything is an escape from unhappiness rather than a move toward happiness.

Among other things, I eat to distract myself. Even my meditation is sometimes just a distraction to escape unhappiness. I went through a series of relationships in my life, some okay, some disastrous, which were driven by my need to distract myself from unhappiness. My cats are a distraction from unhappiness.

Blogging is a distraction from unhappiness. If my inner self were truly at peace and settled, you wouldn't be reading this. I wouldn't have written it, and you'd be asleep or meditating.

I need to think about this some more. (Well, I don't need to think about it, but I almost certainly will.)