[book] The Wisdom Of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. 10/10 .(Alan Watts)

[lmfao]

Alan starts off the book by explaining two main paradigms that westerners have gotten themselves into. The fundamentalist religion paradigm, which tailed into the materialistic paradigm of the universe. He then goes onto to describe that both belief systems are essentially the result of man’s search for meaning/security in an apparently meaningless universe, and questions why it is we seek such paradigms to buy into. 

The book goes on from there, questioning the very deep foundational assumptions we have that cause our confusion. We are constantly looking for ways to isolate and divide a “self”, which can stand apart and be fixed in a universe of constant flux. When we say life is meaningless, what we really mean is that we cant find some static concept/abstraction/idea/belief to make sense of a world in flux.

Alan is amazing with metaphors and is perhaps the best articulator of non-duality I’ve ever seen. The book is quite upbeat in tone, in contrast to some other teachers who’s style is more dry. 

He articulates with great precision how the attempt to sustain and create an ego is a contradiction. It amazes me that despite this book being written in a more Christian traditional/religious era,  Alan could still see with great clarity the issues that are inherent to typical rationalist views of the world. 

https://antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/wisdom-of-insecurity.pdf I personally prefer having a paperback.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by lmfao