reflective fast-paced
informative fast-paced

contemporarymeepsie's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 20%

I borrowed this book from a friend after spying it on her bookshelves. I used to watch a lot of those inspirational videos on YouTube with Alan Watts interviews as a voice over and I used to really enjoy them. So I thought I'd enjoy this. But every page is a struggle. It might just be my frame of mind at the minute and right now might not be the right time to be reading this. But I just felt there was a lot of words for not a lot of substance or meaning. I don't DNF books very often and I tried to get to at least 50 pages but even that felt like a slog. Sometimes it's better to stop if you're not enjoying something because life is too short and I might come back to it later in life and connect with it in a way I'm not capable of right now.
challenging hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

"For there is not fate unless there is someone or something to be fated. There is no trap without someone to be caught. There is, indeed, no compulsion unless there is also freedom of choice, for the sensation of behaving involuntarily is known only by contrast with that of behaving voluntarily. Thus when the line between myself and what happens to me is dissolved and there is no stronghold
left for an ego even as a passive witness, I find myself not in a world but as a world which is neither compulsive nor capricious. What happens is neither automatic nor arbitrary: it just happens, and all happenings are mutually interdependent in a way that seems unbelievably harmonious.
Every this goes with every that. Without others there is no self, and
without somewhere else there is no here, so that—in this sense—self is
other and here is there."


Ok, I'll not claim that I got everything Watts was saying in this book because I didn't. Some points were a mind opener, I was like wow How couldn't I see this that way before, others were like what?!, what does he even mean by this, so I don't know if I can give an honest review here, I won't even rate it.

I might get back to it someday, because I feel like I need too..
inspiring reflective slow-paced
challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Probably the most difficult book I've ever read. Partly because it's philosophy entangled with spiritual concepts. Though mostly because of the vantage point the author takes to make sense of us in this life, in this world, in the vastness of the universe.
Allan Watts needs no introduction. It's a privilege to read his words and to get a glimpse what was happening in that brilliant mind.
Written decades ago but more relevant than ever. A book that I'll come back to again and again to fully grasp it.
informative medium-paced

fabio10's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 15%

Didn’t enjoy the writing style