The Wisdom of Insecurity

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Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Once the split between our descriptions of reality and the real thing can be properly appreciated, the next insight is that time itself is an abstract concept. Free from clutching at themselves the hands can handle; free from looking after themselves the eyes can see; free from trying to understand itself thought can think. In particular, Watts’ ideas inevitably make specific claims about cognitive science and how our brains must work.

A focus on security is a desire to be separate from life, a separateness that in turn only makes us more insecure.If the pursuit of happiness seems like a practical joke inserted into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, you might read this book and declare a little independence as well -- from your "self," for starters. Additionally, I feel that Eastern philosophy seems a more suitable approach for resolving some troubling problems concerning happiness and human purpose than many Western approaches.

Anyone who has obsessed over something in the future, be it something desirable, like achieving a goal, or anxiety-producing, like an exam, can recognize this pattern. But in doing this we are not aware of the present moment for we are focused on our memory of the past. In other words, the past and future are not something we directly perceive, but merely infer, based on the traces we have in memory.But to attempt anyway: This is a book about living in the present moment, and it kind of messes with your mind in that great expansive sort of way. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality. This comes from that game where both players try to last as long as they can not thinking about polar bears.