Wisdom From Alan Watts
“We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.” —Alan Watts
You know those moments when you are looking up at the night sky or out over an incredible vista? That moment of wonder and awe at the chances of our mere existence in this vast universe?
My ultimate aim since I began writing has been to share that moment through words. I haven’t been able to do it yet — at least not as succinctly as I’d like. Yet, Alan Watts had a gift for it.
The quote above captures, for me at least, a key lesson we all need to deeply come to know about life. In our western societies we are often so goal oriented that we miss out on enjoying and truly the living part of life.
This is more than Emerson’s, “Life is a journey, not a destination” – that doesn’t quite capture the idea of it as deeply as Watts musical analogy. Emerson’s quote has also been so over used that it has lost its meaning — much like we don’t actually consider the meaning each time we repeat a memorized prayer at church. The words lose their meaning with such overuse.
Western culture tells us to see the destination as the goal and the aim of life. Yet this musical approach actually sees the “destination” as the end of the song — which is kind of the sad part musically, not the thing to celebrate.
Watts goes on to write,
“When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point.”
Here, Watts clearly lays out the simplest yet most comprehensive way for us to look at life in just a few lines of text. If we can come to deeply understand these words, I think we can actually live life versus let it pass us by. Watts is now dead, but his ideas live on and can help us live more fulfilling lives for the short time we’re still here.