Physicist David Deutsch on entertainment

There is a concept of being entertained by other people or by scenes or by heroin or by T.V. programs or whatever that is a mistake. We may subjectively feel or we may interpret what’s happening as the other thing entertaining us, but really the only thing that entertains us is our own creative engagement with it and, without that creative engagement, nothing can entertain us. When people get this wrong idea about what entertainment is, that’s the kind of mistake where they think something mechanical, such as heroin, can entertain them.  There are these clichéd situations where someone wins the lottery and is miserable. I think the generic trap that one can fall into in this sort of situation is by thinking that money can entertain you, not realizing that only you can entertain you.

- David Deutsch