The Wisdom of Insecurity (Alan Watts)

[kikomiko1]

Great video. I'd love to have you as a teacher.

[ModernDeism]

Started listening to Alan Watts lectures here recently. I can`t get enough. Thanks for sharing your book recommendation.

[foolforlifecoaching]

Brilliant~ thank you.

[kewlperson1000]

smart man you are

[CehBisify]

where can i get the 1st EDITION of this book "The Wisdom of Insecurity"

[meanwithouttheg]

Great summary, thank you!

[augietyson]

So helpful thank you.

[GuitaristInProgress]

Good analysis. Subscribed.



[Lovesalluneed]

I love this book too - love it.  The title alone is worth its weight in gold.

I appreciated your sharing Professoranton.

[anujdasgupta]

@Professoranton Is Insecurity the opposite of Security or is abt "more Security"?

Can u desire something u already have, unless u r desiring for "more" of it, so in the present movement of desire, u still have the object of desire in some way and simultaneously not have it in some other way? Isn't desire like a conversation, a dialogue maybe?

This vs that or, This as per more of This?

[hDMIratioNz]

it does help. thanks

[mixtld]

really dig your vid man! Will be subbing for sure

[TheRatedRThuglife77]

Tupac (2pac) Shakur read the book.

[wishshewaswithme]

another washing machine of thoughts,toying within the inner common sence of a idealistical mind, perfect a white credit card stamped free ride in the post and you'd be well on your way.but mean while in the outer reality,your a hungry mouse in a room with many that want the cheese too and there is not enought to go round as this is the game played by a few invisable cats,watching you toy with a hard sinthetic reality that benifits a few and the nautural reality that benifits not you, DEMOC..!

[landgabriel]

I have no doubts about what I want to do with my life: against all authority! (escept for my own)

[xpwales]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, great video(s).

[summondadrummin]

Ira Chernus wrote a piece on what he called the "National Insecurity State" which is this whole problem writ large on a societal level. Forever seeking national security creates a situation where you end up creating even more insecurity.

[WACH08]

tupac read this book as well

[runtubefantasy]

@WACH08 no way? you've got to be kidding.??

[runtubefantasy]

@WACH08 where did you hear about this any links?

[taratasarar]

Thank you again.

[SHIBBYiPANDA]

THAT WAS AWESOME...........

[Rybot9000]

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt - Thomas Merton

[Sheilaaliens]

Oh yes, I love my Alan Watts, desperately.

[aaronhemeon]

Of course, John Dewey's "The Quest for Certainty" is the great compliment to this book.

[jobedied]

Alan Watts is great google Mooji, Burt harding, Adyashanti, then if you desire watch their you tube short pointers. Call them pointers because the things they say are not designed to be built into concepts. But to be felt and integrated by other than our minds. Perhaps our soul if you need an answer.

Good pointers from this you tube author.

[craigrgill]

Apparently Socretes spent quite a lot of time thinking about stuff..... and he said...

all I know is I know nothing

[craigrgill]

Probably the book that has influenced me the most.

We can never be completely secure because we cannot control every variable.

Therefore we are most secure when we realise and accept that we are insecure.

We may have influence though, so we can do our best and make our decisions to the best of our understanding (thought and feeling) at any given moment.. And remember doing nothing is still doing something, we cannot escape responsibility and consequences of our action or inaction.

[Professoranton]

"And remember doing nothing is still doing something, we cannot escape responsibility and consequences of our action or inaction." Very nicely said.

[craigrgill]

Thankyou

[9macrina9]

good book!*****

[notonewhit]

In your jargon here: the subject is thought as "one and then the other" the "illumination and then the illuminated". The synthesis = Cartesian cogito: the thinker and the thought. Moreover, the symbolic alternation between these terms reveals the neither of subjectivity, Hegel's self-relating negativity, the Lacanian subject.

[amabodie]

I like it, and I like Alan Watts, but our idea of security surely comes from somewhere. At one point in our lives we have felt it. And sometimes we are lucky enough to feel it again. 'I'm there' is an experience that I have felt. But it is always lost soon after. What would you say about ones constant striving to regain this peace with oneself. Are we chasing a dream, an addiction maybe? Would we bother doing ANYTHING at all if the addiction were gone? Is this what drives our insane world?

[zezt]

you explained that great! and with the necessary releasing humour ;))))

[sophia11roma]

Thank you for the book recommendation.

[DANanINHABITANT]

The "law of reversed effort!"

"When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink you float. When you hold your breath you lose it-which immediately calls to mind an ancient and much neglected saying, Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it."(pg. 9)

because you cant have something without nothing.

[mparker18311]

Damn it, now I'm manually breathing and cant stop thinking about it.

[CoffeesIsBack]

Security is like implying no state of change. Within the flux, knowing that one isn't secure and never can be, that there are things outside of a fixed state, out of our control, that we grow old and become, that we transform and share...

Secure in what? What actually exists as it is and as it isn't connected as another?

[Professoranton]

There is no one "there" who could be or not be secure.

[sweetelesue]

Ok, that's it. You just bought yourself a new subscriber.

[Professoranton]

Thanks so much

[TWITfromURANUS]

I'm not what anyone would call 'well read' to any extent ... I've had phases of reading bits & pieces of philosophy, spiritual teachings, modern classics, etc... But just over a decade ago, at a particulary low point in my life, I discovered, in an Edinburgh library, Alan Wison Watts.

(first book I read was 'This Is It')

OMFG!

[TWITfromURANUS]

Now, at 41, I can quite safely say that I have not the remotest clue who I would be had I not found him. I cannot even begin to express what I have gained through reading his books.

This is why I value people like you. Because you know what words can do.

[Professoranton]

You are too kind.

[MeursaultBatemen]

watts is full of win.

specially wisdom of insecurity.

but i liked behold the spirit a lot more though, but it was about a different topic.

[jogayot]

no, there is security. there is security in the transparency of language that one does not need to pick it apart into phonems on every statement. there is security of no burden of proof when expressed into worldview of obviousness. there is innocence of child covering its costs with parenting time... etc. perhaps it's the third part of the dual you mentioned. we don't know in/security when we don't see it...

[DANanINHABITANT]

there is a sort of psychological security in all of the things that you mention. and this is the sort of psychological security that I think professoranton is saying comes about when we stop searching for it. not having the burden of having to pick apart language or having to prove obvious things has a sense of security because its not concerned with security.

[jogayot]

yes, but this negativeness (stating that there is nothing to be secured, no id, no I, etc) is wrong-ended, just like our usual perspective on reality is wrong-sided: that the material is solid, that it constitutes, exists, ex nihilo; homo sapiens, the tip of the evolution is best, etc. (cont.)

[jogayot]

whereas i've come to a conclusion, similarly to what profanton also states, if not just recently, that we come from within of reality, not into it. the ground of void, startingness is fullness of the consciousness. it's only the search for EVEN more novelty that leads to negation, positioning, will, desire and the rest of this jazz, cacophony.

in this way there is neither salvation nor death. at the end. mere return to normal beginness.

[platinumgrade]

@jogayot can you back that up?

[jogayot]

@platinumgrade no, i can only say it. though "recently" i've come to the conclusion that consciousness is the "original" duality. before that, the ground of things is the continuum (as in real numbers but thought of as geometrical space of infinite dimensions). we can not go back to it. condition of our being (universe) is of going away from it. but as thermodynamics indicates in a way going away has a component of eventual return. we are mere stage in it. there is nothing to worry about.

[theosophers]

Who invented the epiphenomenon buzzword?

If epiphenomenon means surface appearance, how does that define non-existence?

It seems like so much BS, like telling psychological types in bars that they are in denial so that they will stop using technical language that kills conversation.

[Triumphit1]

Thanks i appreciate this video.