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Some of history’s greatest philosophers have spent their entire lives writing about the meaning of life. Why are we here? Surely there must be a reason? Many people in western culture believe the meaning of life is to “be happy”. Alan Watts has a brilliant way of eloquently challenging this notion. If we were to live in a state of eternal bliss, then bliss would become dull. Without darkness, there would be no light. Without pain, there would be no pleasure. Happiness is based in perspective. Embrace every aspect of life, the good and the bad, and learn to see the beauty in it.
Full Video Transcript
Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream and that you could for example have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time or any length of time you wanted to have and you would naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams you would fulfill all your wishes you would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive and after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say well that was pretty great.
But now let’s have a surprise.
Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control.
Where something is going to happen to me that I don’t know what it’s going to be.
And you would dig that and come out of that and say,
wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?
And then you would get more and more adventurous.
And you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream.
And finally, you would dream where you are now.
You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.
That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have of playing that you weren’t God.
So then, this means that you’re not victims of a scheme of things, of a mechanical world or of an autocratic God.
The life you’re living is what you put yourself into.
Only you don’t admit it because you want to play the game that it’s happened to you.
because if you play life on the supposition that you’re a helpless little puppet that got involved
or if you played on the supposition that it’s a frightful serious risk and that we really ought
to do something about it and so on it’s a drag there’s no point in going on living unless we
make the assumption that the situation of life is optimal and it makes you realize you see how
how great things are so in this idea then everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality
not god in a politically kingly sense but god in the sense of being the self the deep
down basic whatever there is and you’re all that only you’re pretending you’re not
Source: After Skool