Fair warning: long post ahead.

From a mental health standpoint, Alan Watts and, perhaps to a greater extent, his contemporary, Ram Dass, are some of the best talks you can find on the subject.

That said, I have come to conclude that Watts, Dass, and others of his era failed to prepare their own generation for the corruption, misinterpretation, and weaponization of their talks by those that would come after them. Much of their work made their way into the psychedelic scene and eventually the manosphere where it was then coopted by capitalistic influences and self help grifters.

Even in this talk presented, in which Watts makes sure to hedge all bets by reiterating that this is not a call for passivity, fails to realize where this line of thinking goes when an entire community accepts that truth can only be realized on an individual level. Sure, in a healthy society where there are not urgent matters where truth needs to be realized sooner than later, this would be great. But of course…where we are today is that the truth is terribly uncomfortable to bear, and fixing the various problems we have is only possible when the prerequisite that we have a consensus on what is true is met. Because we are all stuck waiting for each other to see each other’s truths, we never get around to solving anything unless the problem has already become so large it is impossible to ignore.

This isn’t a knock against Watts or the thinkers of their time period, but it does explain a lot as to why the previous generations never preemptively solved problems, but rather always waited until the problems were already present then solve them. It’s because there wasn’t an obvious problem that definitely existed that could be easily observed. This might just be human nature, btw. And it might be the fact that humans are naturally reactive and not proactive that is ultimately our own undoing.

I personally think a more modern take on the issues presented in the talk is that the reason so many of us suffer from various mental health problems is because the world itself is actually in a bad state that none of us have any power to change, and that the various attempts to cope with this be it through psychiatric care, introspection, and living a more healthy lifestyle don’t actually change the state of the world in which we are inescapably a part of. In other words, when the world is on fire, it is normal to become mentally unwell, because it means, at least initially, you’re seeing the world clearly.

While it is good to take a moment to work on yourself, all that work is undone or at least greatly challenged as soon as you return from your wellness practice to interface with the challenges of the world, and you’re put into a cycle of constantly having to work on yourself rather than addressing the potentially insurmountable problems that plague us all.

A good short video that I think covers this well comes from philosopher youtuber, Michael Burns. If you’re so inclined I’d check it out.

EDITS: Wording, spelling, grammar.