The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts
The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts
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The Wisdom of Insecurity
A Message for an Age of Anxiety

Author: Alan Watts

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 3 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/09/2023

Synopsis

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 return to again and again for comfort and insight in challenging times.

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

About Alan Watts

Alan Watts, one-time professional meteorologist, spent considerable time studying wind changes and short-term alterations in the weather. This, combined with his enthusiasm for sailing which began with the sea scouts, enabled him to assist people to read the weather from the signs in the sky. He died in May 2020.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brianna on December 29, 2013

I think this book is bloody brilliant. For the last couple of months, I've been very lost as far as my personal philosophy and religion. I used to be a Christian; I used to be an atheist; I used to be an agnostic; and then I couldn't even commit to not committing to anything. And I've been in a lot o......more

Goodreads review by Sanjay on May 25, 2021

"Any system approaching perfect self control is also approaching self frustration. Such a system is a vicious circle, and has the same logical structure as a statement which states something about itself, for example,"I am lying", when it is implied that the statement itself is a lie. The statement......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on September 08, 2011

Utterly disappointing. It's like listening to a reasonably intelligent person talk out loud while cleaning his navel. Watts posits all sorts of random ideas without backing them up in any form (i.e. evidence or even further thought), and there is no clear logic to the order in which he presents these......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on May 08, 2008

It's funny..., I showed this book to one of my brilliant high school students and he took a look at it and called it a self-help book for people who aren't strong enough to think for themselves and read Nietzsche. (Sounds exactly like something I would have said when I was his age, how far have I f......more

Goodreads review by Tyler on August 16, 2012

If you are the type of reader that highlights the important parts, i would suggest just dipping this entire book in yellow dye. I read it in a little more than 4 hours but i could spend days talking about it. The clarity of Watts' writing amazes me. Highly recommended.......more

Quotes

“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)

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