Alan Watts

On memory & forgetting, via Cave, Kundera & Nietszche

When we’re young, we worry and wonder about how life will turn out.

Will it get easier, does it get better, will it become clear who we’re supposed to be and will we be able to find the right way there?

We know nothing of consequence. The future is all anticipation and expectation.

Words to live by when you're struggling to find your own

For days when you feel torn or dissatisfied, when you wake up and all the toughness of determination seems to be weakened for no apparent reason, the words of others can save you.

They can fill the spaces between moments of clarity or confusion with meaning.

Where you stumble to understand let alone express yourself, and where you understand but can’t do the feeling or the knowledge justice, it can be useful to delegate the task of communication.

The restless whirlpool of life

What is it that we’re saying when we talk of highs and lows? Why do we linguistically frame our lives this way? How have we even come to collectively associate and articulate “forwards” and “up” as signs of progress, while assuming “backwards” and “down” to be regressive?