There's Nothing Left for You to Do but Watch It

So if you feel let down, meaningless, somewhat depressed by this whole thing, and you see at the same time you can’t do anything about it…You’re simply watching what’s happening. You don’t know what’s going to happen next.

And it isn’t just watching something that is formally identified as a depressed state because [there are] a lot of other things going on, too. There is the world around you. There’s your breath. Breathing still, your eyes looking still, your ears hearing still all that’s going on. You don’t know what to make of it anymore. You can’t believe anything about it because you know that it’s all a hoax.

So there’s nothing left for you to do but watch it. And you have become inwardly rather quiet just because you’re worn out.

There’s nothing to do…

So when this sort of defeat of all enterprises and ideals and aspirations occurs, you find yourself naturally and not in an affected or forced way in the contemplative state, where you’re just watching what goes on and even if you’re automatically thinking about it…you realize that those thoughts are futile so far as changing anything is concerned…

And so you watch your thoughts. As if they were the ticking of a clock, or birds chattering outside the window, or water falling, or a leaky faucet. And they just chatter on and life does its thing and you watch the thoughts, because they’re just chatter, begin to go away.

Allan Watts, “Pursuit of Pleasure Part 3”

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