For Pascal, diversion is not only useful, but (under the conditions imposed by the Fall) necessary

      "Thus Pascal doesn’t condemn divertissement, because he notes the utility of it, and even the necessity.  It would be a misinterpretation to see in the reflections of Pascal a moral condemnation, when he limits himself to an anthropological report.  One is [here] very far from the position [(positions)] of Pierre Nicole, who will go so far as to contest the necessity of divertissement:  'But if one wishes to examine matters of good faith [(les choses de bonne foi)], one will find that the need men have of diverting themselves is much less than one believes, and that it consists more in [the] imagination or in custom than in a real necessity' (Traité de la comédie, chap. 8).  To wish to plaster [(plaquer)] that Jansenist ideology onto the idea that Pascal made of divertissement is to wreak havoc with his [mode of] argumentation.
     "To give greater force to his demonstration’s argument from divertissement, Pascal crosses two themes:  [1] that of the divertissement that pushes ennui [temporarily] into the background, and [2] that of the obstinate search for an object or state the acquisition of which will not give happiness. . . .
". . . No one escapes [the necessity of the former].  Such is the condition of every man [including Pascal himself]:  if he is not diverted, he is unhappy.
     "This necessity constitutes a paradox:  divertissement is what diverts us from the necessary, and yet . . . is [itself] necessary."

     Michel Le Guern, "Pascal et le divertissement," Théophilyon 14, no. 2 (November 2009): 276, 280-281 (267–283).