Alan Watts, the renowned English philosopher and writer, bridged Eastern philosophical wisdom with Western thought. His insights have profoundly influenced my life. During a particularly challenging period when I first moved to London – jobless, penniless, and without housing – his lectures provided me with reassurance that everything would ultimately fall into place. Beyond his written works, I strongly recommend exploring his numerous lectures available on YouTube.
The Philosophy of Alan Watts and the Wisdom of Insecurity
At the heart of “The Wisdom of Insecurity” lies a crucial insight: our anxieties and fears stem from our perpetual quest for security and our struggle to embrace the present moment. We spend countless hours dwelling on the past or anticipating the future. In doing so, we trap ourselves in a world of mental abstractions, living in our thoughts rather than experiencing reality directly.
Watts argues that consumer culture drives us to constantly chase the future, instilling the belief that contentment lies always beyond our grasp, in some external achievement or acquisition.
“To pursue the future is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead, This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances.”
– Alan Watts
The Wisdom of Insecurity and the Importance of the Present
When we lose touch with the present moment, we create a perpetual cycle: even upon achieving our future goals, we find ourselves unable to appreciate them once they become our present reality. Instead, we immediately fix our gaze on the next horizon. This cycle continues endlessly until we become aware of its grip on us.
“Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.”
– Alan Watts
The Wisdom of Insecurity and the Flow of Life
Our relentless pursuit of security chains us to our mental constructs, disconnecting us from the present moment. When we try to avoid negative experiences, we paradoxically intensify our struggles, as life naturally encompasses both positive and negative aspects. These elements are inseparable.
“The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing. Music is a delight because of its rhythm and flow. Yet the moment you arrest the flow and prolong a note or chord beyond its time, the rhythm is destroyed. Because life is likewise a flowing process, change and death are its necessary parts. To work for their exclusion is to work against life.”
– Alan Watts
Our suffering intensifies when we resist change, a fundamental aspect of existence. This resistance only deepens our distress and compounds our difficulties.
“You want to be happy, to forget yourself, and yet the more you try to forget yourself, the more you remember the self you want to forget. You want to escape from pain, but the more you struggle to escape, the more you inflame the agony. You are afraid and want to be brave, but the effort to be brave is fear trying to run away from itself. You want peace of mind, but the attempt to pacify it is like trying to calm the waves with a flat-iron.”
– Alan Watts
Fighting against pain, life’s negative aspects, or its inherent changes is as futile as trying to breathe underwater. This resistance against life’s nature only deepens our suffering. The solution lies in embracing life’s flow and accepting both the yin and yang of creation. This acceptance isn’t passive resignation – rather, it forms the foundation for genuine personal growth and positive change.
The Paradox of Pain
Every attempt to fight change is destined for failure – it’s a battle lost before it begins. Like a drop trying to resist a river’s current, we cannot overcome life’s fundamental forces. Our only viable choice is to merge with the flow. In doing so, we discover something remarkable: we can harness the current’s power to propel us toward our aspirations and better circumstances. As the yin-yang symbol illustrates, positive and negative elements eternally contain and define each other.
“Sometimes, when resistance ceases, the pain simply goes away or dwindles to an easily tolerable ache. At other times it remains, but the absence of any resistance brings about a way of feeling pain so unfamiliar as to be hard to describe. The pain is no longer problematic. I feel it, but there is no urge to get rid of it, for I have discovered that pain and the effort to be separate from it are the same thing.”
– Alan Watts
Ultimately, accepting our suffering becomes inevitable. Our struggle against the present moment creates our suffering; when we reduce this resistance and embrace the present, we often find ourselves liberated from the very pain we sought to escape.