Key insights from
The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
By Alan Watts
What you'll learn
The late religion scholar and philosopher Alan Watts (1915-1973) observed many of life’s sure foundations that had been taken for granted as dependable and unshakable crumble throughout Western culture. This experience of getting the rug yanked out from under us time and again has filled many hearts with anxiety and left them grasping for a sense of security. But what if this stripping away of dogmatic certainty were a pathway to peace and a more intimate experience with life? In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts invites us to embrace insecurity as a way to die to the illusory “I,” and discover new life and awareness awaiting us in the present moment.
Key insights
- • What you'll learn
- 1 Our modern age of anxiety is not a burden, but a new opportunity to release a burden way too heavy for us.
- 2 The systems we desperately cling to form the idolatry of our age.
- 3 Life is constant flux and flow, and we miss out on it when we stand back and try to freeze and contain the river of experience.
- 4 The body reminds us that our deepest wisdom is implicit and instinctual—not a list of rules we followed to the letter.
- 5 Awareness comes when we experience the present moment—not from standing back and analyzing it.
- 6 The hunger for security and the feeling of deep insecurity are the same thing.
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