“The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the “I” out of the experience. We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting in two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate “I” or mind can be found.”
Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity
Alan Watts makes an interesting observation that we get into trouble when we believe that our thoughts and feelings are separate from us. We believe that when we say, “I am feeling sad”, that “sad” is something separate from “I”. However, the reality is that we are just sad. Our being is sad. The collective energetic pattern that we are is in a sad state.
Why does this matter? Are we just splitting hairs in a useless philosophical argument?
I don’t think so. I actually think that this is a clue to our sanity and our feeling of wholeness.
If we separate our feelings from our collective being, they are not considered part of us. “Sadness” is something “out there”. It is something to be avoided. It is something that “I” don’t want any part of.
However, there is no sadness “out there”. If we are feeling sad, then every cell of our body is sad. We aren’t feeling something called sad. We ARE sad, we ARE grieving, we ARE angry, we ARE elated, etc.
When we realize this, we can avoid thoughts like “I don’t want to feel sad” or “I shouldn’t be grieving any longer” or “I should be so angry”. All of these statements describe an impossibility. There is no “I” that you can control whether it feels sad, grieving or angry. We simply ARE sad, grieving, or angry.
Imagine how often we might think, “I just want to be happy”, as if there was an “I” who wanted to capture something out there called “happy” and merge with it.
These kinds of thoughts are what keep us curled up on the couch in endless internal cycles… because they are based in non-reality. This is where Alan Watts says that we want to split ourselves like an amoeba to escape how we actually are. So, we pretend that there are two of us - the one that feels a certain way and the one who wants to be something else. So we identify with this other and call it “I”.
But of course, this is madness. This is like a snake that keeps trying to bite its own tail believing it belongs to someone else.
There is no “I” separate from who we truly are.
Staying in our bodies and experiencing our truth may be a more challenging path initially for sure. Avoiding the pain is why our minds create this fantasy, to begin with. However, at least we are able to stay within what is real. We are able to fully feel whatever we are feeling… and from there, we will fully experience it, integrate it, and slowly we will start to feel better… our whole selves.
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