The Wisdom of Insecurity

by Alan W. Watts

thoughts, ideas, and words are ‘coins’ for real things. They are not those things.”

To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.

To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch.

The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality.

To define means to fix, and, when you get down to it, real life isn’t fixed.”