insight

English philosopher Alan Watts suggests ‘You don’t exist’. ‘I wonder what you mean when you use the word I?’ he goes onto ask. Alan says we don’t really have an ego. Or rather, it is a hallucination. And also that we can’t get rid of our ego even if we wanted to… there’s nothing more egotistical than a person trying to get rid of their ego. This always makes me chuckle. Hold on hold on back up, I hear you say. First, you tell me I don’t exist, the cheek of it. Then

Ahh, craving, the sweet whispers of persuasion to indulge in our vices. Silent, yet so powerful. And that’s just it, right? Unless you are experiencing psychosis, you don’t actually hear a voice persuading you to give in. And yet, it essentially is that...only in the form of impulse. A subtle but insistent “I must have X.” Before you know it, your brain has spun several stories convincing you to give in to the urge: drink, smoke, snort, ingest, watch. Like a crafty lawyer as

The very first Alan Watts newsletter has landed! This newsletter summarises the key insights and points from a given Alan Watts' lecture. The newsletter is to help us recall with greater ease his timeless wisdom. We also suggest actionable strategies to use in daily life based on these insights. Here we go 1. You Are Not In the World — You Are Something the World Is Doing We often feel like strangers on Earth. As if we’ve been dropped here, wandering around inside a foreign

We all have habits, behaviours, and thoughts we want to change. People-pleasing, pressure to achieve, conditional self-acceptance, chronic self-criticism, perfectionism, fear of disappointing others. ‘Changing’ these habits is often not enough. And even when we manage to shift them temporarily, we often find ourselves returning to the same old ways, our default settings. Sometimes, then, we need to dig deeper and connect the dots between early experiences and the present. The