🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (15 tweets)

Alan Watts really changed my life when I was inhibitingly depressed around 2014/2015. Life just seemed so bleak - even with a job I liked and a wife I loved, existence seemed like a jail sentence. Alan helped me see that it was funny, in a hearty and nourishing way https://t.co/QazobK21GF

He was genuinely such a *funny* guy. You gotta hear the cheekiness in his voice. He made it clear for me that spirituality should be hilarious. Life is suffering but it’s also funny; if you suffer but you don’t laugh you’re missing out >half the experience https://t.co/uBqdjaXN4T

This is basically also my twitter philosophy. I’m not here to change people’s minds or achieve some grand goal or to fight for or against anything in particular. I’m here to make friends and have a good time https://t.co/EzaVvjKwEg

Enjoy the mess https://t.co/jPkd0qwmAp

separate godlets 😂😂😂😂 fuck, he gets me every time https://t.co/hMwR2WDq5K

take yourself lightly https://t.co/sj8xs5QrVR

I also really enjoyed how he had a way of taking phrases people use without a second thought. “Are you out of your mind?” What does it mean, to be out of your mind? Where is that, exactly? How do you go? How do you get back? https://t.co/Y48J70wvId

I’ve learned so much from listening to decade-old recordings of this guy on YouTube. A sensitivity to others, the joy of inclusiveness, of curiosity and learning from others. We’re all here to have fun and mess around https://t.co/JzR0K60HDP

Ultimately what I’ve “taken away” from Alan is not any single thing he’s said (though there are certainly lots of fun bits) but his *way of being*. I carry his heart in my heart, I am never without it https://t.co/1FJnD3ZILz


If you can imagine this in a way that is respectful and kind: in a sense, my goal in life is to laugh in the face of god. A big, happy, hearty laugh shared between the closest of friends. Children should not live in guilt and fear and shame and anxiety. Existence is hilarious https://t.co/C9lr1wwIVx



I think it was Alan Watts who said that laughter and anxiety are both two sides of the same coin. The very serious job of the comedian, as I see it, is to transmute anxiety into laughter. Voltaire I think had a similar perspective https://t.co/VsU9jlHp02


you could be enlightened in an instant https://t.co/wcwuurazRX

@fortelabs reminds me of a bit from Alan Watts that was like, “tbh you could be enlightened in an instant if you want, but you don’t want it. You want the struggle and the suffering and the journey and the story before you accept what you already know”

the advice problem https://t.co/kwmkN6FbIv


until I listened to Alan Watts (around 2015), my attempts at improving myself, fixing my personal issues, etc were compromised by the language of coercion. I made my best effort to be some kind of authoritarian dictator over myself. I made "progress", and fell into a depression https://t.co/3dScHlVK2E
