Alan Watts

I've been thinking about the ideas of "efficiency" and "usefulness" as applied to the work ethic and the value of a human being in these times where huge numbers of people are experiencing major upheaval in their lives. I recalled a lecture by Watts I heard on KPFK radio some 10 years ago on the idea of "usefulness." I think it may have been called "Wisdom of the Ridiculous."  I took comfort in the idea that one need not be linked to the western idea of what is "useful" in order to be a complete person. In fact, "usefulness" is an artificial hype we've been taught to accept as doctrine.

My memory of Alan Watts is of lying on my bed in a log cabin deep in the cool and shady Santa Cruz Mountains where moss proliferates beneath redwood trees and creeks riffle beneath ferns reading a worn copy of Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather and Watts' The Wisdom of Insecurity.

It was 1972 and I was as lost then as I am now, only lost in a different way. Watts makes me realize I am lost because I compare myself to others and try to "fit in" to the larger consensus of reality, when "myself" and "reality" has little to do with what I was taught. I was pleased to find a collection of videos that presents snippets of Watts' lectures this morning. A list of 78 of his lectures may be found here. Youtube also has lots of his teachings.

I took the time to write about Watts this morning because of an essay I read in the Summer 2010 edition of Oregon Humanities magazine yesterday called "The Artist as Worker," which underscores what I already know: For every writer who is "successful" because s/he learned how to market her/his work and become a celebrity, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of writers who labor in quiet anonymity. Writing isn't about the writer. Writing is about the writing. That's something all artists understood in the middle ages but has been forgotten now that everything is prostituted to money and fame. Now as I bend over my keyboard and notebook writhing with self-doubt, I cast a line out toward Watts and listen for my own wisdom.