Rating: 
Summary: An amazingly deep little book
Review: I picked this book up in the Taoist section and flipped through, liked what I saw and bought it. After reading a few pages I checked the publish date and was shocked to see this book was published in 1952! It sounds like Mr Watts wrote it last week (which is a sad commentary on our society)! After half a chapter I was 'wowed' enough to wonder who this author was and was shocked again when I saw his credentials (MA in Theology/PHd in Divinity). This is by no means a Judeo-Christian book.While Mr Watts doesn't specifically mention Taoism, his writing has the flavor of it. He spends a long time discussing the problems associated with living in the past, then jumping straight to the future without stopping to look around *now*. He explores the use of language and its shortcomings, but those arguments have become commonplace in undergrad courses everywhere. The real power of this book for me was the focus on letting go, for example, "...the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing." He expands on this quite clearly. Reading this book was a strange and fun experience in that I realized that I was thinking of a lot of the same issues that Mr Watts discusses, but was of course 5-20 years behind him on almost all of them. I also got the feeling that, even though I understood him on some level all the time, I will have to read this book at least twice more to actually *get it*.
Rating:
Summary: 25 years of Security
Review: I read this book 25 years ago, and it changed my life! "The Wisdom of Insecurity" was my guide towards zen and tao and has served as a bridge to my spirituality whenever my "Big Head" is overwhelmed and confused by the uncertainty of life. Today, however, I'm ordering two more copies for friends.
Rating:
Summary: A must buy for anxiety sufferers!
Review: I suffered from anxiety disorder following a psychotic reaction to marijiana. Two and a half years into my disorder I discover this book. BAM! It changed my life. Watts seems to understand instantly the vicious circle that is an anxiety disorder - and the way out of it! Read this book and get your friends to read it!
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of Poetic Wisdom
Review: I think Alan Watts was the finest writer of English prose I've ever read, and "The Wisdom of Insecurity" is one of his very clearest, wisest, and best works. If you doubt me, just read his opening words in the chapter "The Age of Anxiety" here on this site. Does anyone write more clearly and beautifully than this, especially about such profound matters?
Watts wrote this book just after leaving the Episcopal Church upon his painful realization that he couldn't reconcile the official theology and his duties as a priest within that institution with his personal and very "Eastern" view of reality. The thesis of the book is that we find enlightenment and happiness not in looking for perfect and unchanging conceptual truths, metaphysical realms, or theological beings inside or outside us, but in feeling "in the very marrow of our bones," that the Reality with which we're inseparably linked is an ever-changing, unified field of existence, and completely accepting and relaxing into this realization and Reality.
A previous reviewer says that he was inspired by the Watts quote to the effect that life is a mere spark of light between the darkness before birth and the darkness after death. But this is misleading. Watts' point was that people try to escape seeing life this way by misguidedly clinging to simplistic and ultimately unfulfilling notions of permanence in this life or afterward. Watts argued that life was infinitely more than an ephemeral spark too, but that we will only realize this deeply when we joyfully embrace the "wisdom of insecurity."
I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's a masterpiece of poetic wisdom.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best on the topic!
Review: I was recommended this book by a great friend who is always an inspiration to me. Though I expected it to be a good book, this book turned out to be an even bigger inspiration for me than I had expected. Although insecurity is what drives us all, it is the same insecurity that keeps us away from the truth. An even better book I read recently on this topic was, "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is so excellent in explaining how we become insecure and how a large part of life is a process to figure a way out of it. These books are so great I would recommend it to anyone ready to see the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Quotes to Live By
Review: I'm no longer sure how I bumped into this book. I'm sure it was from a review or a list of best books to read. In any event, I'm glad I did bump into. Alan Watts writes about the obvious. But, like so many simple things, we need his clear and effective writing to see that what he says is truely obvious. Basically, we spend too much time planning and anticipating the future and too much time thinking about, lamenting and wishing to change the past. I have dogeared too many corners underlying too many quotes to reproduce them all here, but let me give you a flavor: "If happiness always depends on the future, we are chasing a will-o-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future,and ourselves,vanish in the abyss of death." This quote is taped to the cover of my fanancial notebook that contains my financial portfolio data, 401K information and reams and reams of retirement plan calculations. He also wrote: "But tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unlessyou are in full contact withthe reality of the present,since it is in the present and onlyin thepresent that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly." This short book contains so many pearls, go get yourself a copy, pick some quotes, write them down, look at them, reread them (e-mail them to me) and get on with living today. --Joe
Rating:
Summary: This man changed my life.
Review: If you're scared to challenge beliefs you've always held to be true, don't touch this book. If you're ready to think about things in a way most people don't, this book could put you right on a path that's so fresh and inspiring, it's lead me to read every book Watts wrote and explore the various Eastern religions he always refers to. The Wisdom of Insecurity discusses extremely foreign and complex concepts in a way that is beautiful to read and calming to imagine.
Rating:
Summary: Letting Go and Letting God
Review: Invoking the type of spirituality long professed by recovering alcoholics and members of other twelve step groups, Dr. Watts encouraged his readers to embrace their insecurity in the world. According to Watts and other spiritual giants, the task for mature individuals was neither to deny their insecurity, nor to attempt to overcome it through their own efforts. Instead, he called upon us to admit our own relative weakness, and surrender to God those elements of our lives that we shall never control. In short he called upon us, in faith, to abandon ourselves to emptiness: the great mystery. Dr. Watts' framework was Eastern; primarily Buddhist, but the reality can still be embraced by all people of faith.
Rating:
Summary: "Belief clings, but faith lets go."
Review: One of my favorite books of all time. I've reread it more times than any other, but never without reaching new insights and finding new inspiration. It's filled with wisdom like the following: "[I]t is a serious misapplication of psychology to make the presence or absence of neurosis the touchstone of truth, and to argue that if a man's philosophy makes him neurotic, it must be wrong. 'Most atheists and agnostics are neurotic, whereas most simple Catholics are happy and at peace with themselves. Therefore the views of the former are false, and of the latter true.' Even if the observation is correct, the reasoning based on it is absurd. It is as if to say, 'You say there is a fire in the basement. You are upset about it. Because you are upset, there is obviously no fire." Watts talks about the many subtle proprieties of life in which we are all engaged but which we seldom discuss. Then, the instant you read them, you feel as if your own thoughts had been read aloud. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: "Belief clings, but faith lets go."
Review: One of my favorite books of all time. I've reread it more times than any other, but never without reaching new insights and finding new inspiration. It's filled with wisdom like the following: "[I]t is a serious misapplication of psychology to make the presence or absence of neurosis the touchstone of truth, and to argue that if a man's philosophy makes him neurotic, it must be wrong. 'Most atheists and agnostics are neurotic, whereas most simple Catholics are happy and at peace with themselves. Therefore the views of the former are false, and of the latter true.' Even if the observation is correct, the reasoning based on it is absurd. It is as if to say, 'You say there is a fire in the basement. You are upset about it. Because you are upset, there is obviously no fire." Watts talks about the many subtle proprieties of life in which we are all engaged but which we seldom discuss. Then, the instant you read them, you feel as if your own thoughts had been read aloud. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
| 
