What Happens When You Only Pursue Pleasure - Alan Watts

What Do You Desire?

In this section, the speaker asks a deeper question about what people truly desire in life. He shares his experience of guiding students who are unsure about their career paths and encourages them to consider what they would like to do if money were no object.

Finding Your Passion

• The speaker notes that many students express a desire to pursue creative careers such as painting or writing, but are discouraged by the belief that these pursuits cannot be financially viable.

• He advises individuals to identify what they truly want to do and forget about money because pursuing something solely for financial gain will lead to a wasted life.

• The speaker emphasizes that it is better to have a short life filled with things you enjoy than a long life spent doing things you don't like.

• He suggests that when people pursue what they love, they can eventually become masters of it and earn a good fee for their work.

The Illusion of Control

In this section, the speaker discusses how people often desire power and control over their lives but argues that this is not actually desirable.

Power and Control

• The speaker notes that many people desire technological omnipotence - the ability to control everything instantly. However, he argues that having complete control over the future makes life predictable and boring.

• He explains that people ultimately want pleasant surprises in life but acknowledges that unpleasant surprises are also necessary for there to be any surprises at all.

• The speaker concludes that being in power and having control is not something any sensible person wants. People should instead focus on finding pleasure in life without seeking complete control over it.

The Lesson for the Western World

In this section, the speaker argues that the Western world is too focused on power and control and needs to learn that these things are not actually desirable.

Shirking Responsibility

• The speaker notes that some people may argue that shirking responsibility by avoiding power and control is irresponsible. However, he argues that pursuing power without a clear idea of what to do with it is even more irresponsible.

• He concludes that nobody actually wants to be God or have complete control over everything. Instead, people should focus on finding pleasure in life without seeking complete control over it.

Pleasure and Desirelessness

In this section, the speaker talks about how pursuing pleasure beyond a certain point leads to pain and desirelessness. He explains that not knowing what you want is the beginning of desirelessness.

The Naraka World

• Pursuing pleasure beyond a certain point takes you into what Buddhists call the Naraka world or hells.

• When you have explored pleasure to its ultimate limit, the only thing you can get a kick out of is pain.

• Naturally, you descend from the devil world at the top of the wheel to the naraka world at the bottom where it shows all these beings in states of torture.

Not Knowing What You Want

• There's an ending stage of not knowing. In the beginning stage, you don't know what you want because you haven't thought about it or have only thought superficially.

• When somebody forces you to think about it and go through and say yeah I think I like this, I think I like that, then you get beyond that and say is that what I really want?

• The end result is no; it's not really what I want. Why don't you really know what you want?

Reasons for Not Knowing What You Want

• Two reasons why people don't know what they want are:

• They have it

• They don't know themselves because they never can.

Desirelessness

• "I don't know" is another form of saying "I love," "I let go," or humility.

• Anytime one voluntarily lets up control (ceases to cling to oneself), one has access to power because they're wasting energy all the time in self-defense trying to manage things.

• The moment one stops doing that, the wasted energy is available. Therefore, one is in that sense having that energy available and is one with the Divine Principle.

• When you're trying to act as if you were God (i.e., you don't trust anybody and you're the dictator), you lose the divine energy because what.