Alan Watts

Classic. Proposes the reversal of ordinary thinking - how to live in an insecure world without the consolation of religious belief.

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Alan W. Watts

Steph Lodico

Quite the doozy, The Wisdom of Insecurity is written like any other philosophy book, unnecessarily jumpy and mind boggling at most times. But when there’s a gem, there’s a gem—I definitely got a lot out of this book. It was actually quoted in an enneagram book for Type Sixes (me), who I feel would benefit from leaning into insecurity a bit more by leaning into this book. And yet, like a classic Six, I finished it wanting a little more something concrete. I just felt like I was getting less and less the more I read after a certain point, although the book was very short: he says pretty clearly halfway through that security and life are incompatible, and while the second half tries to support this, it didn’t do as good of a job as the first half did. 

This book is probably one I would have to read more than once to really grasp; if anything, I think Watts is speaking above me and I could learn more with each read. If you get super irritated at philosophy (like me), proceed with caution, but I think it’s valuable nonetheless, especially for people constantly in existential crises (like me).

Brigid prior 

Had some tidbits of good info but possibly it just went over my head. It seemed like a lot of talk about nothing and way too much musing on circular thinking.

Jack Baty

I don't know who this book is for, but it's not me. It felt like the same 4 sentences about how the past and future don't matter and avoiding the "divided mind" repeated with a splash of eastern religions thrown in.

In sum: Live in the moment.

Ivaylo Durmonski

The main mission of Alan Watts is to help us know ourselves better. To smash our current understandings about happiness and pain so we can find meaning in this, at first, meaningless world.

The book was published in 1954 but the whole concept is timeless, also, quite true even today. We’re living in a pleasure-seeking age. We want to feel good all the time which, unfortunately, is making us unable to cope with pain. Intolerable to the daily struggles which result in depression.

The concept I liked most in the book is the following: The thing we desire more than anything else in life is to feel good. But since this is not possible we’re in agony when even the slightest sign of pain appears. Or in other words, to really feel good, we need to make “painful” things seem more desirable. Tasks that will lead to future gains more appealing. This way, you can finally start exercising even though you don’t quite like doing physical activities.

Read full review: https://durmonski.com/book-summaries/...

Luca Conti

Bud Valley

Easily one of the most influential books I've ever read in my life (the others were written by Watts as well), this short summary of the core of Watts' philosophy is expertly written and extremely lucid. You'll learn how the illusion of your "self" as a separate ego detached from the world and trapped inside a bag of skin is just that - an illusion.

"The perfect guide for a course correction in life, away from materialism and its empty promise" (Deepak Chopra), Watts 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

moony 

drew mcarthur

Anthony

Alberto Cinco

Suggests that the best way to achieve security in life is to let go of the anxiety associated with the past and future, understand and accept the limits of technology and science, and to focus on the present moment.

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Reviews