>>24814715
first one then the other

Hippie bullshit

>Google Alan Watts
>His estate runs an official website
>That website includes a shop
>A single poster is eighty dollars
>There's an option to license Alan Watts' voice
>At the very bottom of one page is written: "A.I. is becoming prolific and audiences are becoming confused as the what is authentic Alan Watts and which is A.I. generated. The world needs real meaning now more than ever, and it’s our principal aim to ensure authentic Alan Watts remains available and easy to access."
Even pointing out how ironic this is feels exhausting. There's just no end to peoples' greed, is there?

>>24814715
Very drunk conman.

>>24814755
I'm still mad about youtube taking down the amazing alan watts chillstep mixes by Terrestrial Exitium. There are a few copies up last I checked their quality was garbage compared to the originals.

Midwit sociopathy, present in most Western Buddhists, because their compassion for all living things easily becomes apathy.

>>24814860
This.

>>24814715
Not really either. He was very articulate but really only restating things said by others in an eloquent and entertaining way, and he never claimed to be anything more. Parts of what he said don't hold up because he was exaggerating or making an observation that was relative to the situation at the place and time (1960s San Fran) he was giving those lectures. For example, he says "Don't try to improve yourself" but what he actually means is 'Don't try to surpass your means and then flog yourself over it, instead learn to better use your existing means' - for example, instead of looking for a psychological trick to force yourself to be faithful, if you're a randy fuck, don't promise monogamy in the first instance and choose to be honest about being non-committal instead (something he could have observed better himself apparently). If you're hopelessly not suited to a particular job, rather than trying to contort yourself to be better at carpentry or whatever it is for a protracted amount of time you should look for a different role you are fit for. Don't force it. You can still look for ways to improve a present state with what you have but don't expect you can transcend the limits of your organism and find a cheat sheet to hack your own mind, learn to accept imperfection and have compassion for each other and find the best way to work through things with minimal fuss and conflict instead. The reason he formulated it as an extreme is because there was a glut of self-help books and guru schemes at the time telling people if they do some Wim Hoff shit they can control they can Make Friends and Influence People or whathaveyou. There's bits and pieces like that throughout his recorded career that could do with additional footnotes like that to make their implied intention in the original context clearer where it could confuse or mislead modern audiences. His endorsement of suicide for some people is another one, too many zoomer idiots off themselves over their gf of 3 months dumping them or whatever nowadays because they haven't known real pain. He's more suggesting that for the hopelessly schizo or dopamine-fried like e.g. Ligotti or Mainlander there's a fair case for it (but not necessarily an imperative). Overall, taken in the right spirit (he was a lecturer in comparative philosophy and religion, NOT a buddhist or a therapist/saviour figure and explicitly says this in some talks), Alan Watts had a lot of intelligent and worthwhile things to say and I think Gen Z and Alpha would be better off being raised on his talks than on most of what their cultural and educational intake is in 2025 in practice. Blame the wooks for his current lowbrow rep. Imo he was an absurdist more than he was anything else, ultimately.

>>24814755
Yeah his estate really milk it. There's a few big zip files that float about on Soulseek, Internet Archive etc. & I'm just identifying and removing all the duplicates, naming shit properly, finding the best quality version of the talks with poorer audio, etc. before I stick them all in one place for free on Soulseek permanently. If anyone wants to link me to any I might have missed lmk, I'm not sure I have all of the Eastern Wisdom & Modern Life videos.

>>24814929
Oh, small addition: the main thing about him that could be said to be hippy bullshit was later on he did believe in some sci-fi stuff like ESP, but given the rapid pace of scientific advancement during his lifetime I think a little magical thinking can be forgiven since afaik he didn't take it anywhere in terms of shilling or drawing new philosophical/practical conclusions that relied on those beliefs.

>>24814929
To be quite fair, you have to have a high IQ to use 4chan

>>24814715
reddit cringe

>>24814715
Midwit facebook boomer cringe tier, just re arrange it to come up with something just as profound (kek)

A student of Buddhism tries to learn something every day

a scholar tries to unlearn something daily

>>24814715
He was a dedicated Eastern Religion Misunderstander for the California beatnik market. Hippies postdate Watts' heyday.

>[Parable about how you should love each other or some shit.] -Jesus
Uninsightful drivel for rednecks.
>[Parable about how you should love each other or some shit.] -Llama Ogglyboogly
So wise that I shit myself and died.