If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Which brings us to the crux of the matter: it is because we want to feel secure that we build up the fortifications of ego, in order to defend ourselves, but it is those very fortifications that create the feeling of insecurity: To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I”, but it is just this feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid. This is a strikingly counter-intuitive notion: appreciating it entails a mental shift similar to that moment when the famous optical illusion switches from resembling a beautiful young woman to an old witch. We build castle walls to keep out the enemy, but it is the building of the walls that causes the enemy to spring into existence in the first place.
It’s only because there are castle walls that there is anything to attack. The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest, in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet. Even if we temporarily and partially achieve the feeling of security, he adds, it doesn’t feel good. Life inside the castle walls proves lonely and isolating. We discover [not only] that there is no safety, [and] that seeking it is painful, [but] that when we imagine we have found it, we don’t like it.
- Oliver Burkeman's in his brilliant new book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking quotes Alan Watts from his book The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
It’s only because there are castle walls that there is anything to attack. The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest, in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet. Even if we temporarily and partially achieve the feeling of security, he adds, it doesn’t feel good. Life inside the castle walls proves lonely and isolating. We discover [not only] that there is no safety, [and] that seeking it is painful, [but] that when we imagine we have found it, we don’t like it.
- Oliver Burkeman's in his brilliant new book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking quotes Alan Watts from his book The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
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