Don’t Fall For The Trap - Alan Watts On Work And Pleasure

I don't know if any of you witnessed the World Cup in soccer last year television it was won by the Brazilian team and I have never seen such soccer that's not the way they taught us to play it in school as the sports writer in the London Times put it they danced their way to Victory because the whole thing was like very fine basketball bouncing it off almost any part of the body with a Capac to give it Direction with one's back with one's shoulder with one's hip anything head it was a a beautiful art magnificent spectacle but you see we are not taught to do things that way because we are taught that life is serious and therefore must be done in an efficient way but according to ukian ideas of efficiency in ancient times when people worked they used to sing hardly anybody sings anymore except at a performance of some kind or or something like that imagine a bank teller singing as they were counting out the money oh the King was in his Counting house counting out the money 5 10 and 20 30 40 50 no why not what would happen if you were confronted by a singing bank teller would complain to the management say this is money is very serious they could sing about it everything will go wrong can you imagine a stock broker's working song I uh have seen people I once had my shoe shine in a New York Subway that was a most extraordinary performance you know and he was swinging and imagine supposing you were a bus driver you know most people when they drive a bus through City traffic they are cursing and swearing and being angry and fighting the clock all the way through town well it's a disaster but imagine driving a bus with the idea that going from here to there it wasn't the point wasn't to get there but the point was to go and dancing that bus through the streets with an very very skillfully accurate traffic dodging and when you get to a stoplight and there's a jam you play a little tune on the horn or you pass jokes to the cab driver near you or you play with the passengers see anything can be turned into juggling into playing with balls that's why we say have a ball so this bus driver is swinging through the streets and he Prides himself in the Marvel of his torian art but people don't do that because work is not supposed to be pleasant because you get paid for it you're not supposed to get paid for enjoying yourself see that's what I do I think I'm smart I talk to you not because I think I'm doing you any good but because I like talking about these things and if you pay me for it then I make my living as simple as that I'm a sort of philosophical Entertainer but that's the point that the transformation of work is swinging it and the curse of work that came in the story of Genesis you see work became a curse because the tree of knowledge was the knowledge not of Good and Evil in the ordinary sense but of the advantageous and the disadvantageous so work then being regarded as a method of getting there effectively a lot of businessmen imagine that they are practical people is I don't for philosophy and that kind of thing I'm a practical man I like to get things done what and what is practical well you made money but that's not practical until you spend it till you enjoy it and it's very difficult to enjoy money money is a great responsibility besides if you get lots of it you're afraid somebody's going to take it away it gives you the Jitters you know lots of people think that if they had a little more money their problems would be solved and they get it then they worry about their health there always something to worry about if you're the worrying kind always and it can get worse instead of getting better by achieving all those things you think will stop you worrying so the first [Music] principle in we could call it the art of pleasure is you must swing and that means or at least it looks like superficially that you mustn't take anything seriously [Music] you must realize that life is a form of dancing and dancing is of course not serious and that's why it's prohibited by Baptists and gloomy people of that kind they don't approve of dancing even in the Catholic church we don't normally see priests dancing I mean it's not because it's sex You Can Dance Without Partners of the opposite sex You Can Dance by yourself but it's considered undignified but what is the virtue in being stiff and rigid as ler said man at his birth is Supple and tender but in death he is rigid and hard plants when young are juicy and soft but when old they are brittle and dry thus suppleness and softness are the signs of life but rigidity and hardness are the signs of death so the feminine in the sense of the lilting the playful the curvaceous the soft is the neglected principle by all us ukian it is the principle of life and of nature but the problem that exists or rigid people and we all get rigid in the sense of resistance resistance to life resistance to change is how on Earth do I stop that syndrome which makes me go uptight how do I stop that because it's useless almost useless that sensation of totally unnecessary strain that exists all the time that is the ego the physical reference of the idea ego just that unnecessary strain as that tells you you exist and so that rigidity of holding against life so that I maintain my shape my form my place all the time that constant resistance makes you uptight and unable to swing through fear of what will happen if you let it wiggle and so therefore a non- wiggly person is [Music] unadaptable mechanical like Behavior patterns that have to go on on on regularly always the same chug chug chug chug chug and they're not adaptable cuz you're too rigid you don't swing in the [Music] wind that's so you're going to collapse e

Channel: T&H - Inspiration & Motivation

Views: 339,929

Keywords: alan watts, alan, watts, alan watts speech, alan watts lecture, alan watts life, alan watts inspiration, inspiration, t&H, t&h inspiration, t&h motivation, best of alan watts, alan watts talk, alan watts t&h inspiration, allen watts, allan watts, alan watts t&h, t&h, life's illusions, illusion, alan watts game of life, alan watt, alan watts see, alan wats, self, work, play, work and play, enjoying life, pleasure, Don’t Fall For The Trap - Alan Watts On Work And Pleasure

Id: qOA1DQtN4Vg

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024