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Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot.

Alan Watts

We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.
ALAN WATTS

Civilization Emotion Example Image Language Private Seldom Society Wisdom
Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.
ALAN WATTS

Humanity Humor Knowledge Laugh Oneself
Like love, the light or guidance of truth that influences us exists only in living form, not in principles or rules or expectations or advice, however widely circulated.
ALAN WATTS

Advice Existence Expectation Guidance Influence Light Love Principle Room Rule Truth
Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double.
ALAN WATTS

Alcohol Conscious Ourselves Philosophy
This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
ALAN WATTS

Complete Life Play Realize Secret Work
Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
ALAN WATTS

Actual Command Feeling Love Pretend
Hospitals should be arranged in such a way as to make being sick an interesting experience. One learns a great deal sometimes from being sick.
ALAN WATTS

Arrangement Deal Experience Hospital Interesting Learning Sick
The morning glory which blooms for an hour differs not at heart from the giant pine, which lives for a thousand years.
ALAN WATTS

Bloom Giant Glory Heart Life Live Morning
People become concerned with being more humble than other people.
ALAN WATTS

Concern Humble People Spiritual
We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.
ALAN WATTS

Action Expression Individual Leaving Nature Ocean People Process Unique Universe Waves World
If one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.
ALAN WATTS

Endless Future Inspirational Life Present
No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
ALAN WATTS

Capacity Fear Future Heart Live Love Planning Valid Work
In reality there are no separate events. Life moves along like water, it’s all connected to the source of the river is connected to the mouth and the ocean.
ALAN WATTS

Connection Life Mouth Move Ocean Reality Separate Source Water
Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.
ALAN WATTS

Destruction Hand People Process Realize Same Technology Universe
There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can’t be said.
ALAN WATTS

Adequate Poetry Talk Words
You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
ALAN WATTS

Ocean Physical Universe Wave

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot.

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Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot.

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