Alan Watts - Loneliness - Incredible Speech with No Music

Listen to this amazing speech about loneliness by Alan Watts. Don't forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE!Now, what seems to develop is this, most people think that "I" is a center of sensitivity somewhere inside their skin. And the majority of people feel that it's in their heads. Civilizations in different periods of history have differed about this. Some people feel that they exist in the solar plexus. Other people feel that they exist about here. But in American culture today or in the Western culture in general, most people feel that they exist in here.And there is, as it were a little man sitting inside the center of the skull. And he has a television screen in front of him, which gives him all messages from the eyeballs. He has earphones on, and that gives him all messages from the ears. And he has in front of him a control panel with various dials, and buttons, and things, which enable him to influence the arms and legs, and to get all sorts of information from the nerve ends. And that's you.A child, for example, can ask mother, "Mom, who would I have been if my father had been someone else?" That seems a perfectly simple and logical question for a child to ask, because of the presumption that your parents gave you your body. So that age-long idea that is indigenous, especially to the Western world, is that, "I am something inside a body. And that I'm not quite sure whether I am or am not my body. Some doubt about it. I say, I think, I walk, I talk. But I don't say, 'I beat my heart.' I don't say, 'I shape my bones.' I don't say, 'I grow my hair.' I feel that my heart beating, my hair growing, my bone shaping is something that happens to me. And I don't know how it's done, but other things I do."And the purpose of being human, is we feel to subjugate nature to make it obey will. And we arrived here, we don't feel that we belong in this world. It's foreign to us. In the words of the poet, Housman, "I, a stranger and afraid in a world I never made." And so all around us today, we see the signs of man's battle with nature.I'm living at the moment in a marvelous house in the Hollywood Hills, and we're overlooking a lake. And on the other side of the lake, the whole hill has suddenly been interrupted with a ghastly gash, where they have made level lots for building tract homes of the kind you would build on a flat plane. This is called the "conquest of nature." These houses will eventually fall down the hill, because they are causing soil erosion.And they're being maximally stupid. The proper way to build a house on a hillside, is to do it in such a way as to effect the minimum interference with the nature of the hill. After all, the whole point of living in the "Hills" is to live in the hills. There's no point in converting the "Hills" into something flat and then going and living there. You can do that already on the ground. So people, the more people live in the "Hills," the more they spoil the "Hills." And they're just the same as people living on the flat ground. I mean, how stupid can you get? Don't you remember that sometimes you went out and played with other children. And there was someone in the group of other children you admired and look up to, and you came home imitating the mannerisms of that other child. And your mother said to you, "Johnny, Johnny, that's not you, that's Peter." And you felt a little bit ashamed because somehow you'd let her down. She wanted you to be you, her child, and not, Mrs. Jones's child, Peter.And so in many ways we are all taught this. For example, the main thing that we're all taught in childhood is that you must do that which will only be appreciated if you would do it voluntarily. "Now, darling, a dutiful child must love its mother, but now I don't want you to do it because I say so, but because you really want to." Or, "You must be free." See this comes into politics, "Everybody must vote." You see? Imagine. "You are members of a democracy and you must be members of a democracy." See? "You're ordered to." Crazy.#alanwatts #lonelinessDISCLAIMERThe content in any of Omni Wissen's Youtube videos shall not be construed as tax, legal, insurance, construction, engineering, health & safety, electrical, financial advice, or other & may be outdated or inaccurate; it is your responsibility to verify all information. These Youtube videos are for entertainment purposes ONLY. IF stocks or companies are mentioned, Omni Wissen MAY have an ownership interest in them -- DO NOT make buying or selling decisions based on Omni Wissen's videos. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.