The Wisdom of Insecurity

Recommended by Sam Berg, an artist I met on the River Trail.

Introduction

Watts was a spiritual polymath who read omnivorously in philosophy, religion, psychology, and science.

Lasting happiness can only be achieved by giving up the ego-self, which is a pure illusion anyway. It constructs a future out of empty expectations and a past out of regretful memories.

"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."

That is a hard quote for any Christian who cherishes the reward of Heaven to hear. It is much more Eastern, closer to Buddhism.

"By all outward appearances our life is a spark of light between one eternal darkness and another... We have been accustomed to make this existence worthwhile by the belief that there is more than the outward appearance, that we live for a future beyond this life here."

Life does not make sense unless there is an eternal order and an eternal life behind the uncertain and momentary experience of life and death.

In the past 100 years, so many long-established traditions have broken down: traditions of family and social life, of government, of the economic order, and of religious belief. There are fewer and fewer things we can regard as absolutely right and true. This is a welcome release from constraints for some, and a terrifying breach of reason and sanity for others, plunging them into hopeless chaos. To most, it is a relief followed by deep anxiety that if all is relative and nothing is absolute, then there is no future and thus no hope.

Human beings appear to be happy just so long as they have a future to which they can look forward, whether it be a good time tomorrow or everlasting life beyond the grave. But fewer people believe in the latter these days, and the former never arrives because the happiness depends on something expected in the future, making the good time difficult to enjoy in full.

This insecurity of human life is supportable by belief in unchanging things beyond the reach of calamity: in God, in man's immortal soul, and in the government of the universe by eternal laws of right. Such convictions today are rarer because of the doubt and skepticism introduced through science.

"This decay of belief has come about through the honest doubt, the careful and fearless thinking of highly intelligent men of science and philosophy. Moved by a zeal and reverence for facts, they have tried to see, understand, and face life as it is without wishful thinking."

Once there is suspicion that a religion is a myth, its power is gone. A myth can only work when it is thought to be truth, and man cannot knowingly and intentionally kid himself for long.

Even the best modern apologists for religion seem to overlook this fact. Their strongest arguments for returning to orthodoxy are usually the social and moral advantages of belief in God. But that does not prove that God is real. It proves, at most, that believing in God is useful. But if the public has any suspicion that he does not exist, then the benefit is lost.

So if we have no scientific grounds for belief in God and cannot find solace in absolutes, how do we face life as it is and live without despair? How do we make meaning of this blip in existence?

We find life meaningful only when we have seen that it is without purpose.

Chapter 2

At times we envy animals for their simple view of the world. They always seem so busy with what they are doing at the moment that they never stop to ask whether life has meaning or a future. For the animal, happiness consists in enjoying life in the immediate present, not in the assurance that there is a joyful future ahead.

The more we are able to love another person and enjoy his company, the greater must be our grief at his death or in separation.

We must be willing to suffer for our pleasures.

Our consciousness of time is the issue. For the animal to be happy it is enough that this moment be enjoyable. But man is hardly satisfied with that at all. He is much more concerned to have enjoyable memories and expectations, especially the latter. With these assured, he can put up with an extremely miserable present. With this assurance, he can be miserable even in the midst of immediate physical pleasure.

Our life is change. Do not try to fix it. The only way to make sense out of the change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Religion tries to make sense out of life by fixation. It tries to give this passing world a meaning by relating it to an unchanging God, and by seeing its goal and purpose as an immortal life in which the individual becomes one with the changeless nature of the deity.

The special disease of civilized man might be described as a split between his brain and the rest of his body. This corresponds to the split between the I and the me, man and nature. We have allowed brain-thinking to develop and dominate our lives out of all proportion to instinctual wisdom, which we are allowing to slump into atrophy. As a consequence, we are at war with ourselves: the brain desiring things the body does not want, and the body desiring things the brain does not allow.

The root of frustration is that we live for the future, and the future is an abstraction, a rational inference from experience, which exists only for the brain.

The spiritual must mean the indefinable.

The function of the brain is to serve the present and the real, not to send man chasing wildly after the phantom of the future.

Chapter 5

How are we to heal the split between I and me, the brain and the body, man and nature, and bring the vicious circles it produces to an end? We need more light. More awareness. We need to be aware of life, of experience as it is at this moment.

You have to see and feel what you are experiencing as it is, and not as it is named. This sounds overly simple because most people imagine themselves to be fully aware of the present already, but Watts says that is far from true.

Awareness is a view of reality free from ideas and judgments.

On the question of finding security, we are talking about spiritual and psychological security. Humans must have minimum material security in food, drink, and clothing, but that is not what he means here.

The contradiction of wanting to be secure: the very nature of the universe is momentariness and fluidity. The desire for security contradicts the fact of change. If I want to be secure, to be protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. In other words, the more security I get, the more I will want.

The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. The principal thing to understand is that there is no safety or security.

The underlying drive is: make the future predictable enough that I do not have to feel uncertainty.

Wanting a house or a loving partner is not the problem. The issue is the expectation that these things will guarantee internal peace. The more you build your internal calm on external stability, the more vulnerable you are.

You either live from the ego that wants certainty, continuity, and control, or you live from the deeper awareness that is okay with impermanence.

Watts is not saying do not have a job, do not have relationships, do not have plans. He is saying stop trying to make life secure in some absolute, permanent sense. The insecurity you fear is baked into existence. Make peace with that instead of fighting it.

To stand face to face with insecurity is still not to understand it. To understand it, you must not face it but be it.

The notion of security is based on the feeling that there is something within us which is permanent, this center and soul of our being which we call I. We think this is the real man, the thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our feelings, and the knower of our knowledge. We do not truly understand that there is no security until we realize this I does not exist.

Let go of the observer and become the felt experience directly, the observed, with no resistance, no commentary, no self-image watching.

Watts is not claiming that a truly enlightened person never wants anything. He is saying wanting does not come from a separate, permanent self. It just arises as part of the flow.

So instead of "I want this because it will complete me or secure me," it becomes more like "a want is happening." It is not don't pursue. It is don't build your soul out of your pursuit.

When your goals become part of your identity, it creates anxiety, fear of failure, and perfectionism. When ego grabs the wheel, ambition becomes fragile.

Non-ego ambition is more powerful because you are less scared of failure, you can take bigger swings, you are not attached to old plans, you can reinvent yourself without ego resistance, and you act freely instead of fearfully.

You do things because you love them, because they are the direction energy naturally wants to move, because it is the next thing life is asking of you. You climb the mountain because the air feels good and the view is great, not because you need to call yourself a mountain climber in order to be someone.

Chapter 6

If you are listening to a song and I suddenly ask, "At this moment, who are you?", you are likely to tell me about the past. About who you were, but not who you are in this moment.

In moments of great joy we do not pause to think, "I am happy" or "This is joy." Ordinarily, we do not think thoughts of this kind until the joy is already past its peak.

There are two ways of understanding an experience: by comparing it with memories of other experiences, and by being aware of it as it is, letting the present be all, and thus not even stopping to think. Comparison does not let us understand as deeply as awareness without comparison.

A frightened or lonely person begins at once to think, "I'm afraid," or "I'm so lonely." This is, of course, an attempt to avoid the experience because we do not want to be aware of this present.

We try to escape to our memories because they are fixed. But if you accept that escape is impossible because the feeling is now yourself, then you are aware of it. You do not need to name it or resist it.

Be completely sensitive to each moment, regarding it as new and unique, having the open mind and being wholly receptive.

There is no separability between the thinker and the thought. They are the same. Do not try to escape pain, absorb it. You are pain. Be like water.

The pain will no longer be problematic. You'll feel it, but there is no urge to get rid of it because pain and the effort to separate from it are the same thing.

Chapter 7