After hearing Alan Watts being referenced on a number of podcasts and recalling an inspirational audio clip of him speaking, when a recent podcast guest recommended reading “The Wisdom Of Insecurity : A Message For An Age Of Anxiety“, I borrowed it from my library.
The first 1/3 of the book was an enlightening and elucidating read. Even though it was written in 1951, much of what he wrote could be directly applied to conditions and people in the US today. Given that Watts was some kind of intellectual, I was actually a bit surprised how easy and digestible this book was for me.
And then he went deep into philosophy. The remaining 2/3 of the book was unreadable. He spent an entire chapter discussing how thinking of oneself as “I” negates living in the present as I. Another long chapter was spent arguing that using words to describe conditions and feelings meant that the person thinking in terms of words was living in the past.
Ugh. Philosophy. I am not cut out for it.
I skimmed through the rest of the book before giving up entirely.
Today, when writing this post, I listened to some Youtube clips of Watts speaking in an attempt to find that short inspirational speech I heard years ago. I found plenty of recordings, but they were all deep philosophical dissertations.
This is a perfect example of why I no longer buy books and instead use the library. As much as I love to read, I no longer will finish every book. I’ll give most books I borrow at least a few chapters before giving. I’d estimate that I fully read 50% of the books I borrow, skim 25% of them and give up on the remainder if I find the first few chapters unappealing.
Still, I’m sure I’ll be borrowing more books that get recommended by intellectuals and experts. Just cannot get into philosophy apparently. It’s too much navel gazing and overanalyzing for me.
