The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety

Building off the concept of awareness developed in the previous chapter, Chapter VI details the wonder of the present moment. Watts relates a Chinese parable, the upshot of which is that the only way out of our suffering is to plunge into it headfirst.

Still, people anxiously attempt to avoid the present experience. One route for doing so is via memories. In our memories we attach ourselves to things that may bring us comfort, or at least stability and familiarity. The present experience, on the other hand, is always novel. Each moment is totally original. “The art of living in this ‘predicament’” (95) requires attentive receptivity to the newness of every moment. Watts admits that he is not proposing a theory of philosophy but rather an experimental way of living, an art like judo or Taoism. Watts believes that one gains mastery of the opposition when one learns how to give oneself over to it. By giving ourselves over to the present, we will no longer be frightened of it.

Watts believes that an important quality of the human mind consists in its ability to absorb shocks while remaining stable. The mind should be neither too rigid nor too ill-formed.