The Wisdom of Insecurity

Zusatztext Reading Alan Watts challenges us to explore new avenues of thinking! inspires us to lead more fulfilling lives. His legacy lives on in The Wisdom of Insecurity ! a work that energetically displays Watts's piercing intellect! razor-sharp wit! and winning grace. For the clarity and wisdom with which it engages timeless concerns crucial to us all! it is unmatched. An important book. Greg Mortenson ! author of Three Cups of Tea Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West! Watts had the rare gift of 'writing beautifully the unwritable.' Los Angeles Times The wisdom of insecurity is not a way of evasion! but of carrying on wherever we happen to be stationedcarrying on! however! without imagining that the burden of the world! or even of the next moment! is ours. It is a philosophy not of nihilism but of the reality of the presentalways remembering that to be of the present is to be! and candidly know ourselves to be! on the crest of a breaking wave. Philip Wheelwright! Arts and Letters This book proposes a complete reversal of all ordinary thinking about the present state of man. The critical condition of the world compels us to face this problem: how is man to live in a world in which he can never be secure! deprived! as many are! of the consolations of religious belief? The author shows that this problem contains its own solutionthat the highest happiness! the supreme spiritual insight and certitude are found only in our awareness that impermanence and insecurity are inescapable and inseparable from life. Written in a simple and lucid style! it is a timely message. Book Exchange (London) Informationen zum Autor Alan Watts Klappentext "The perfect guide for a course correction in life, away from materialism and its empty promise" (Deepak Chopra), The Wisdom of Insecurity shows us how-in an age of unprecedented anxiety-we must embrace the present and live fully in the now in order to live a fulfilling life. 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 from Eastern philosophy and religion, Alan Watts shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not-and cannot-know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing."Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Watts had the rare gift of 'writing beautifully the unwritable.'"-Los Angeles Times I. THE AGE OF ANXIETY By ALL OUTWARD APPEARANCES OUR LIFE IS A SPARK of light between one eternal darkness and another. Nor is the interval between these two nights an unclouded day, for the more we are able to feel pleasure, the more we are vulnerable to painand, whether in background or foreground, the pain is always with us. We have been accustomed to make this existence worthwhile by the belief that there is more than the outward appearancethat we live for a future beyond this life here. For the outward appearance does not seem to make sense. If living is to end in pain, incompleteness, and nothingness, it seems a cruel and futile experience for beings who are born to reason, hope, create, and love. Man, as a being of sense, wants his life to make sense, and he has found it hard to believe that it does so unless there is more than what he seesunless there is an eternal order and an eternal life behind the uncertain and momentary experience of life-and-death. I may not, perhaps, be forgiven for introducing sober matters with a frivolous notion, but the problem of making sense out of the seeming chaos of experience reminds me of my childish desire to send someone a parcel of water in the mail. The recipient unties the string, releasing the deluge in his lap. But the game would never work, since it...

“Reading Alan Watts challenges us to explore new avenues of thinking, inspires us to lead more fulfilling lives. His legacy lives on in The Wisdom of Insecurity, a work that energetically displays Watts’s piercing intellect, razor-sharp wit, and winning grace. For the clarity and wisdom with which it engages timeless concerns crucial to us all, it is unmatched. An important book.”
—Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea

“Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Watts had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully the unwritable.’”
—Los Angeles Times

“The wisdom of insecurity is not a way of evasion, but of carrying on wherever we happen to be stationed—carrying on, however, without imagining that the burden of the world, or even of the next moment, is ours. It is a philosophy not of nihilism but of the reality of the present—always remembering that to be of the present is to be, and candidly know ourselves to be, on the crest of a breaking wave.”
—Philip Wheelwright, Arts and Letters
 
“This book proposes a complete reversal of all ordinary thinking about the present state of man. The critical condition of the world compels us to face this problem: how is man to live in a world in which he can never be secure, deprived, as many are, of the consolations of religious belief? The author shows that this problem contains its own solution—that the highest happiness, the supreme spiritual insight and certitude are found only in our awareness that impermanence and insecurity are inescapable and inseparable from life. Written in a simple and lucid style, it is a timely message.”
—Book Exchange (London)

Autorentext

Alan Watts

Klappentext

"The perfect guide for a course correction in life, away from materialism and its empty promise" (Deepak Chopra), The Wisdom of Insecurity shows us how-in an age of unprecedented anxiety-we must embrace the present and live fully in the now in order to live a fulfilling life.

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 from Eastern philosophy and religion, Alan Watts shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not-and cannot-know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing. "Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Watts had the rare gift of 'writing beautifully the unwritable.'" -Los Angeles Times

Zusammenfassung
**An acclaimed philosopher shows us how—in an age of unprecedented anxiety—we can find fulfillment by embracing the present and living more fully in the now. He is "the perfect guide for a course correction in life" (from the Introduction by Deepak Chopra). 

The brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it.

**Alan Watts draws on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy and religion in this timeless and classic guide to living a more fulfilling life. His central insight is more relevant now than ever: when we spend all of our time worrying about the future and lamenting the past, we are unable to enjoy the present moment—the only one we are actually able to inhabit.

Watts offers the liberating message that true certitude and security come only from understanding that impermanence and insecurity are the essence of our existence. He highlights the futility of endlessly chasing moving goalposts, whether they consist of financial success, stability, or escape from pain, and shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing.

In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts explains complex concepts in beautifully simple terms, making this the kind of book you can …