Dewet Bekker

Alan Watts (via alanwilsonwatts)

I realise that this quote is a little more esoteric than it needs to be, so I’ll contextualise it a little better. The lecture in which Alan Watts makes this statement features a number of complex points. The main one, however, is that our endless desire for self-improvement can itself be the biggest obstacle to our self-improvement. Such desire clouds our perception and prevents us from seeing that sometimes not effortfully trying to improve ourselves can actually be the best way to do so. Instead, we perpetually try too hard and usually end up making a mess of it. To paraphrase Zhuangzi: happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. There is an extended Watts excerpt below. —Blogger’s Comment

“The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t, shall I put it like that? We aren’t better because we want to be. Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because all the do-gooders in the world whether they’re doing good for others or doing it for themselves are troublemakers: on the basis of “kindly let me help you or you will drown,” said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree. Sometimes doing good to others and even doing good to oneself is amazingly destructive because it’s full of conceit. How do you know what’s good for other people? How do you know what’s good for you? If you say you want to improve then you ought to know what’s good for you, but obviously you don’t because if you did then you would be improved. So, we don’t know. We do not really know how to interfere with the way the world is.” —Alan Watts

Alan Watts (via alanwilsonwatts)

I realise that this quote is a little more esoteric than it needs to be, so I’ll contextualise it a little better. The lecture in which Alan Watts makes this statement features a number of complex points. The main one, however, is that our endless desire for self-improvement can itself be the biggest obstacle to our self-improvement. Such desire clouds our perception and prevents us from seeing that sometimes not effortfully trying to improve ourselves can actually be the best way to do so. Instead, we perpetually try too hard and usually end up making a mess of it. To paraphrase Zhuangzi: happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. There is an extended Watts excerpt below. —Blogger’s Comment

“The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t, shall I put it like that? We aren’t better because we want to be. Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because all the do-gooders in the world whether they’re doing good for others or doing it for themselves are troublemakers: on the basis of “kindly let me help you or you will drown,” said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree. Sometimes doing good to others and even doing good to oneself is amazingly destructive because it’s full of conceit. How do you know what’s good for other people? How do you know what’s good for you? If you say you want to improve then you ought to know what’s good for you, but obviously you don’t because if you did then you would be improved. So, we don’t know. We do not really know how to interfere with the way the world is.” —Alan Watts