Book

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety

We live in an age of unprecedented anxiety. Spending all our time trying to anticipate and plan for the future and to lamenting the past, we forget to embrace the here and now. We are so concerned with tomorrow that we forget to enjoy today. Drawing fr

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Alan Watts (6)

“The question 'what shall we do about it' is only asked by those who do not understand the problem. If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing. On the other hand, doing something about a problem which you do not understand is like trying to…”

— Alan Watts, amazon.com

Tagged: Lightness and Darkness, Problem Solving, confusing

“Your body does not eliminate poisons by knowing their names. To try to control fear or depression or boredom by calling them names is to resort to superstition of trust in curses and invocations. It is so easy to see why this does not work. Obviously, we try to know, name, and define fear in order t…”

— Alan Watts, amazon.com

Tagged: Depression, Naming Things, How To Overcome The Pain

“Running away from fear is fear; fighting pain is pain; trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought.”

— Alan Watts, amazon.com

Tagged: Fear, Running From Fear, Pain, Fighting Pain, Courage

“We suffer from the delusion that the entire universe is held in order by the categories of human thought, fearing that if we do not hold to them with the utmost tenacity, everything will vanish into chaos.”

— Alan Watts, amazon.com

Tagged: Culture, order, Chaos

“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”

— Alan Watts, amazon.com

“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”

— Alan Watts, amazon.com