Recently two things happened – as part of the UK Psychedelic Society’s reading list I discovered The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts and I had a heated philosophical debate with an ‘old soul’ friend of mine about life purpose and it exists. As you may know, the question of life purpose acutely interests me.

This led to inspired googling and discovering Sense of Nonsense: Alan Watts on How We Find Meaning as well as Alan Watts’ lecture on life purpose below. His intriguing perspective on how we can arrive at meaning by surrendering to meaninglessness has surprisingly reassured me and given me a no doubt temporary sense of meaning. And in the world of creation for the sake of creation, this is as good as it gets. I should stop clinging to structure… I’ve included some of the best quotes from The Book below.

Each organism is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety.

…the fullest collaboration with the world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts – based on the realization that the only real ‘I’ is the whole endless process. We do not know it only in the sense that the thin ray of conscious attention has been taught to ignore it, and taught so thoroughly that we are very genuine fakes indeed.

Knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.