h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The idea in the title is something that none of us can really do. You can distract yourself for a while, but your challenges and responsibilities won't have changed when you come back to them, except possibly through the arrival of some unwelcome correspondence from creditors or the Child Support Agency. Hence some of the questions posed in the Talking Point seem to me to be founded on dubious premises (though they're still intriguing).

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For guidance I go to maps and owner's manuals. The authors of these are thankfully modest chaps who prefer to remain anonymous.
For solace, if I find it in literature, it's a matter of serendipity. The usual pattern is that if I'm unhappy when I start reading, then I'll get more unhappy through reading.
I guess the expected answer here is some kind of religious creed. I happen to think that they're all evil, and that the people who take comfort in them are misguided and rather dangerous.
The best reason to read anything, incidentally, is curiosity.

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I have seen IaWL. It was quite a long time ago, and I remember it was good, but it doesn't fill me with a warm glow every time I think of it. More generally, films and music are great displacement activities (books too for that matter), but you soon come back out of them and rejoin the Real World.
As for films that really make you think, I have some candidates at that level. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is recommended, and so is Miyazaki's Graveyard of the Fireflies. They won't change your life, though.

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Yes. I think I already did

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The press (and the broadcast media, including the dodgy organisation that oversees this site) have an unfortunate obligation to keep talking whether they have any news for us or not. Bad news reiterated gets worse. Good news reiterated goes stale. That's human nature.
The people who hired Robert Peston have a lot to answer for.
The question about whether things are actually that bad is another wrongly founded one. There's no state-of-mind palliative to macroeconomics. Your money is worth less this month, and your future material prospects are worse. Those are facts. How you react to them is the only thing you have control of.

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It might be possible to avoid the consequences of global recession, but you'd have to be a hermit. It would pretty well mean that you don't notice only because you've foregone all the benefits to date. Nobody reading this is in that position, by the simple fact that they have access to a computer.
There's a moral question underpinning all this, of course. Should everyone suffer a little to help those who are drowning, or should we just deem it their own fault and let them sink? It seems that some of us can actually start to feel better once we've apportioned blame, but I'm relieved to discover that I'm not wired like that.

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Belter of a question this one, and worth a whole essay. A guy in the pub (Ziv, for anyone who lurks) had a revealing take on this the other day. Once we were all truly religious, and believed unquestioningly in an afterlife and a self-determined path to eternal salvation. Now the West is pseudo-religious, and literal faith is replaced by hope in the face of uncertainty. He drew an exact parallel in democracy, with a sure faith in leaders of the past replaced in collective unspoken agreement about the inadequacy of people like George Bush. Now, once you've got this mindset, you have the climate for today's crisis. It's the Emperor's New Clothes just waiting to happen.
Collective facing-up to eventual (or even imminent) death really could help. It would certainly fuel a perception that time spent down is precious time wasted.

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IMO, what's really important in life is the same thing as what's worldly. So no, I disagree. Humanity thrives on change, not on introspection. There are some new scavenging opportunities emerging out there. Do what comes naturally to the species. Get out there and hustle.

Finally, thanks for a really good Talking Point, and well done for not using the word 'inspiration' in it. People who seek inspiration in times of adversity should probably be led off into the woods and encouraged to lie down for twenty years.