Alan Watts on Improving Oneself
Hi Everyone!
I really hope people are keeping well both physically and mentally!
I come to IH with this thread, because I feel like this community attract people who tend to think a little deeper about life and are more tuned to their inner self so to speak (that's not to say it's either a good or bad thing).
Recently I listened to a lecture by Alan Watts (https://youtu.be/vlNVQ-_y4-0) in which he talks about our urges to constantly improve ourselves, and how they may in fact be creating more problems than we think they are solving.
Now as a person who thinks of improvement a large chuck of their time, this is a really difficult concept for me to take on, but I have a feeling that there is something really important to take from this lecture.
I was curious if anyone has come across these lectures by Alan Watts and if they managed to make some sense of them/ applied them to their own life.
Maybe this can spark a conversation of what these concepts could mean.
Peace and Love
That was a really good listen, thanks for linking to it. I've always enjoyed Alan Watts, his talks are so good they could have been recorded yesterday for how relevant they are today.
I understand what he's saying about self improvement, and in summary, there is no self improvement, especially as this could lead to something worse.
On a bit of a tangent, during lockdown I did a lot of gardening and it made me realise how much we waste food-wise as a society. We've moved from small local farms, to more industrial production in order to improve the process. We automate more to save time, we grow more to feed more people, but what's the cost? A single lettuce for example gave me enough for salads continuously over a few months, all you do is pick the leaves and it will regrow while in the ground. However when you buy lettuce from the shop, it usually has an expiry of just a few days before it goes bad making it single use. I just can't un-see how much food we waste now because we kept trying to improve our processes. If more people grew their own food we could have less waste. You have the added bonuses of knowing what chemicals get used, plus the satisfaction of eating your own harvest which is an important human factor.
Now bringing that to a business setting, people are always thinking about pushing themselves to be the next Amazon, or the next Google. With the number of people trying to do that it's unlikely to happen, which can be discouraging. Instead we could move back to the days when things were more local. If you can live off providing a local service it could be more sustainable. Again, there might be more satisfaction benefits from helping the community, real people you might see every day, rather than a faceless paid invoice you get each month.
Instead of pushing forward, it's important to take a step back and see if those improvements have actually helped.
It's something to ponder anyway..
Thanks both for this, I appreciate it.
I very much have a local and anti-big-inefficient companies mindset too, I like how you've worded this. ❤️