STORIES: Alan Watts

I loved Watts from the very start, through his books. I loved his irony, without which one can never speak of wisdom. I was enchanted by his ability to entertain through philosophy, and to make the teachings of Eastern philosophies, above all Zen and Taoism, so wonderfully “simple”. Most of all, though, I love his humanity, including the “imperfections” and the “shadows” he was never ashamed of.

Like every Zen practitioner, he knew that the destination is always and only the present moment, and that the past and the future are nothing more than illusions, invented to tell us the reassuring lie that we have a permanent identity.

He loved parties and women. He liked to dance and perhaps got drunk a little too often. A great radio entertainer who managed to talk about Zen philosophy by weaving it into stories, fables and glimpses of simple, everyday life. A hugely prolific writer, but never banal.

A psychonaut, curious to explore, fearlessly, every possibility of his mind. A chronicler of LSD journeys for meditative and recreational purposes, and a popular voice on the properties of mescaline and marijuana. Certainly aware of the importance of meditation, but also of the contribution that only psychedelic substances can make to it.

He was an ecologist who would probably have felt very much at home with Giordano Bruno. He loved good food and knowing how to cook it. A passionate lover of music and poetry, he was an inspiration to an entire generation.

A free spirit who, in the reactionary times we are living through today, would be accused of the worst things: inciting the use of drugs and alcohol, being politically incorrect, sexually questionable advances and so on.

Today, though, his gravest fault would be putting pleasure and freedom before the mere survival of the modern-day producer/consumer.

M.M.

STORIES is a column dedicated to great stories from the past that can inspire your present.