Alan Watts wants you to Love Life, not hate it.

[Jules Hiræther]

I feel the need to explain Alan Watts a bit in favor of Everything.
The following review caused me to be alarmed:

"Interesting concept for a game but its polluted with narrative of a broken philosophy that from time to time suggests the listener commit suicide.."

Suicide is incorrect. Alan Watts was not glorifying death or suicide. This isn't Judas Priest "Suicide Solution" or a Mudvayne dirge. There is no subliminal or outwardly suggestive rhetoric about death in Everything, nor in the philosophy of Watts, nor in Hindu, Tibetan, or Buddhism. This is not Nihilism. Watts was a Buddhist / Hindu interpreter for Western Philosophy. Much more an adventurer than scientist or educator. He should be taken with that in mind, that he speaks more from experience than book learning, though he still managed to teach in an honorary capacity. The lectures can get very dark indeed, challenging many subjects most would rather not think about, or even kill themselves over. Ultimately the message is to recognize these thoughts and overcome them by living in the pursuit of health and happiness.

Don't misunderstand Te (the black side) as death, similarly to the common misconception of the Hanged Man as being doomed in tarot, because it's about birth. Karma is never good or bad, it just is. The way is nameless. Think nonduelistic, or interdependently, as opposed to one-sidedly. Yin is never without Yang. Stars need Space to shine & burn. Everything is about how death explains why one should live. Nothing dies. Each lifetime is sacred its journey as well as its destination.

That being said, Watts did drink himself to death. He said it was better to die young "enjoying what you do" rather than live an old and painful life, calling the latter "stupid." We all disagree with him sometimes, but more often than naught, he understood the meaning of archaic philosophy at a time when Alexander's Greece collided the far East. It's not easy to translate. I suggest trying some of the other philosophers if Watts isn't to your taste. He is, after all, basically a Beat Hippy and world traveler more than anything else. Gary Snider probably is not your cup of tea either, nor Kerouac, but perhaps Ginsberg would be more to your liking in that era. Carl Sagan is honestly just as good as any of the beatniks. It all makes sense in moderation.

There are few better teachers than Alan when it comes to condensing thousands of years of complex philosophical rhetoric into comprehensible English. His metaphors & ways of demonstrating perspectives make understanding Asian history much more accessible to the West. The message is life. There is no death without life and no life without death. It's not about apathy however it is about forgetting anxiety in order to help the brain work more efficiently. Alan Watts, for all his shortcomings, was quite a merry person. Serious when it came to the lecture hall perhaps, but he had little time for redundant questions and had no love of teaching. He wanted to live free and actually did it as a bodhisattva. Like a Monk Druid he made his was peacefully, by philosophy.

Just don't walk away from Everything taking away a message of death when the message truly is one of LIFE. It's positivity for the worst of times.

"Here in the Moy Cane, which is the red-light district of Dublin – Here in Moy Cane we flop on the seamy side, but up n’ent, prospector, you sprout all your worth and you woof your wings, so if you want to be Phoenixed, come and be parked." -Finnegans Wake

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” – Alan Watts.

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts.

“Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.” – Alan Watts.

“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” – Alan Watts.

[Stooge]

Wondefully stated, I enjoyed reading that a great deal and it kicked my day off to a wonderful start. Thank you for taking the time to write that.

As a person who was once suicidal I can also state that looking back there is nothing about it that would be cause for celebration. In my particular case (others may not be the same) it would have been a selfish act that served nothing but to cause pain, confusion, and heart break to those I left. It would have been cruel for me to have done that and hurt so very many people I genuinely care about.

Life should be celebrated, precisely because it does not last forever. A wonderful way (again for me, others may vary) to celebrate it is to try and view life from the view point of everything else that exists.

No need to rush to find death, because at some point death will find you. It is very, very good at its job. In fact it is almost (if not) 100% successful at it.

[PSIohm]

Hireather :)

I do think the subject raised needed to be- I noted it at the time when it happened to me- but for me those " thoughts" were the accumulating junk in the golden gate- so the meaning of them ( thoughts- albeit negagtive and the meaning of the 'golden gate' was not lost on me and seemed very relevant'.

I do guess though many wont be used to traversing subjects/ or their own mind in a philosophical manner, so your post was very poignant considering that.

Also, you got a smile from me for quoting Finnegans Wake!

[Twelvefield]

WHAT A GREAT THREAD! Thank you for sharing and contributing!

[Jules Hiræther]

This thread makes me very happy, indeed.

[Arucard]

I feel a bit foolish playing a game I though was a goofy, time-waster. After finding the second audio of Watts' lecture I had to quit from the lack of expectation. I feel like I've been punched in the soul right now. This game may either save or destroy me, I honestly don't know right now, but the journey will be quite interesting either way.

[Jules Hiræther]

Try to roll with the punches. ~
It's all okay; we all hold on to things we think are important and feel foolish once we gain new perspective. Might I suggest You-Tubing all the excellent Share & Share alike recordings indy artists have made using Alan's old recordings. Some are quite good. Not to mention all of the Lectures are up there a well. The game does destroy something, a type of sickness called desire. In the West we consider it positive to Capitalistic progress. The issue is too much of a good thing; satiety. We swamp our lives with material objects that resemble memories. Many of us forget that living life is more important than the collections we amass. You don't get to take any of the objects with you at death. You do keep ALL of your memories and the remember what you forgot.

The message is Carpe Diem; sieze the day! Enjoy life. Stop living for the money. "Forget the money and do what you really want to do." -AW That way you'll find happiness.

"The perfect man has no self;
the spiritual man has no achievement;
the sage has no name."
- Chauang Tzu

As you "destroy" the sense of self you once had, recycle that energy, diffuse it into what saves you. Make you like what saves you. Plan for things you want in life and expect nothing. Make your own happiness & share it.

It is not selfish to heal yourself first so that you might help others. I wanted to post some other philosophers here as their eloquence surely surpasses my own.

"Hard work good and hard work fine, but first take care of head." -Sublime

How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
-Luke 6:42

"People should have their minds on the Way at all times, no matter what they are doing.
When they walk, they set foot on the path of evenness.
When they stand still, they freeze their feelings in cosmic space.
When they sit, they tune the breathing in the nose.
When they recline, they embrace the jewel below the navel.
Eventually the tune of the breathing is unbroken, and you are like a quiet fool all day long.
This is the correct practice - it has nothing to do with contrived observances."
- Taoist Master Danyang, circa 1850
Found in "Taoist Meditation," translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambhala, 2002, p. 110.

"The whole cosmic body turns and changes, conforming to the process of the Tao. The third law of Chinese physics (which one could also call the first law of its metaphysics) states that every body that goes through a prolonged and repeated cyclical action is transmuted and purified. This is true even of the most humble and inert organisms and objects; trees, stones, and long-lived animals like the tortoise or the stork can become spontaneously spiritual by the simple action of the cycle of the seasons and the years. All creatures of exceptionally advanced age can manifest their power and thus influence their environment. ... For the human being, a normal, peaceful, regulated life is a major factor in his accumulation of spiritual power. Living according to the calendrical cycles, the ever-renewed passing of the seasons, and participating in these through everyday religion, leads one naturally to that marvelous old age which is the greatest happiness on earth before one joins the ranks of the ancestors. ... The virtue which confers divine power is obtained by cultivating oneself through hsiu-yang, a practice which enables us to acquire, on the basis of our natural dispositions, exceptional qualities. Hsiu-yang means to arrange, to smooth down any roughness or irregularities by repeating an action many times in harmony with the cosmic order, until perfection is achieved. The perfect and complete body is thereby nurtured, its energies strengthened; it thus becomes totally integrated into the natural and cosmic environment. From there, the way is led, by repeated, cyclical movements, to spontaneity, which is the essence of the Tao. ... It takes daily practice and endless repetition of the same gesture, the same discipline and ritual procedure, to achieve the mastery that finally allows one to create perfect forms without any apparent effort. It is nature retrieved, spontaneous creation, the secret stolen from the Tao."
- The Taoist Body. By Kristofer Schipper. Translated by Karen C. Duval. Foreword by Norman Girardot. Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1993, p. 41.

"Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable, they are one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
Unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
Form of the formless,
Image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it - there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the Tao, Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao."
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Nuturing energy, forget words and guard it.
Conquer the mind, do nondoing.
In activity and quietude, know the source progenitor.
There is no thing; whom else do you seek?
Real constancy should respond to people;
In responding to people, it is essential not to get confused.
When you don't get confused, your nature is naturally stable;
When your nature is stable, energy naturally returns.
When energy returns, Elixir spontaneously crystallizes,
In the pot pairing water and fire.
Yin and yang arise, alternating over and over again,
Everywhere producing the sound of thunder.
White clouds assemble on the summit,
Sweet dew bathes the polar mountain.
Having drunk the wine of longevity,
You wander free; who can know you?
You sit and listen to the stringless tune,
You clearly understand the mechanism of creation.
The whole of these twenty verses
is a ladder straight to heaven."
- Master Chang San-Feng, 100 Character Tablet, Translated by Thomas Cleary


"Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun."
-Alan Wilson Watts

[whowasphone404]

Thanks for this thread, I thinkthe game could be a great way to introduce Alan to a new generation. Did you happen to see Her? He figures as a character in that, and David also did some animation for it. You seem to be very well read. Is there anyone you would recommend for a fellow Alan Watts fan?

I personally really enjoy reading Dogen and Shunri Suzuki.

[Jules Hiræther]

Thanks! I'm an Idiot Savant with brain damage, so I appreciate that. My math skills are that of a child. I am very fortunate to be a 1 in a billion case where the injury from iatrogensis where one side of my brain has made up for other lobe's damage. As if that wasn't enough, I also have a rare disease called Behcet's, and to break it down I am essentially staving off aneurysm for as long as possible. My brain overheats and I get sores, could go blind, crippled, etc. I believe that these philosophies together with Oriental medicine, Native American Medicine, Ayruvedic Medicine, acupuncture, and cannabis have saved my life as well as my brain. Following the advice of Tribal people's has been superior to western medicine. Humor with wisdom is vital to me. Some of these authors I simply cannot read again.

I read the I Ching every day, multiple translations. I have an app. It works well somehow.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is my favorite book / radio show.
The works of Christopher and J.R.R. Tolkien are a close second.

King Wen I Ching translations, Lao Tzu, Gary Snyder, Terrence McKenna, Joseph Campbell, Ram Dass, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, The Beats & Merry Pranksters, Douglas Adams, Kurt Gödel, Albert Einstein, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Joyce, H. P. Lovecraft, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Xenophon, Josephus, Martin Luther, The Nag Hammadi (banned translation I can't find anymore), The Taoist Parables, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Materia Medica of Oriental Medicine, Tales of Maj'Eyel lore (Hebrew Mysticism), & All the Final Fantasy lore (which is basically another version of Campbell's life's work). And more than I can recall..

Somehow all of that makes philosophy & religion hum harmoniously in my brain. It takes art and science, poetry and action. I have a love / hate relationship with the Deconstructionists, Postmodernists, as well as the Beats Kerouac, & Ginsberg. One learns more from their mistakes than their triumphs. I almost killed myself studying Foucault's Panopticism it made me so depressed. He had some sort of word virus. Same with reading Naked Lunch, as it bursts the protective bubble of ignorance, exposing the 30's ~ 90's for the horrors actually taking place that no one wants to report. Read at our own risk. I remember reading the autobiography of Monster Cody and it really messing my brain up, as it's 1st person 80's gangland, but brilliant nonetheless.

Right now Dan Carlin History podcasts are excellent, as they help me learn history whilst making art. He uses tons of sources, many diary accounts, with less ethnocentrism than most can muster. I also love old radio shows for the sociological perspective. You can also find tons of McKenna, Snyder, Dass, Campbell on audio.

I rarely watch TV, but I love Quite Intelligent on ITV / BBC. Q.I. is brain food and humor. Their books are also fascinating.

[Cydonia]

Great thread. +1
I love that the game continues to inspire these kinds of thoughtful, open-minded discussions.

[386er]

+1

[Jules Hiræther]

Epicurus should be on that list above, too.