How important is entertainment to you?

There are many things people can do—manufacturing jobs, farming jobs, intellectual jobs, entertainment jobs and so many more. With many of these jobs, you can actually see a product when you are done with your work for the day. And, I suppose, even in entertainment, you can see a book or a movie or any other work of art.

I guess I’m not talking about what is produced, but rather, I am talking about the impact of what is produced. I.e., what is the impact of entertainment compared to the impact of, say, building a house?

Entertainment is information, broadly speaking. Entertainment can educate, or inform, or create fantasies or images or dreams. It can relax or communicate ideas. It can move people to feel something or to do something. But all this is unquantifiable. It does something inside people’s heads and what it does is unique to each individual.

I suppose we need a definition of entertainment, because it’s not just anything that is fun. People can have fun doing a lot of things that would also be called work. I’m talking about what people do on their own time, for no pay. The information they consume just because they want to. For the moment (until one of you brilliant people points out a failing of this definition), that is what I mean by entertainment.

What does entertainment do inside your mind? What does it mean to you? Does it make you a better person or merely help you pass the time? Does it matter to you if you become a better person, or is it more important to you to live your life as happily as possible?