The Purpose of the Dance

The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buss, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the ‘I’ out of the experience … Sanity, wholeness and integration lie in the realisation that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate ‘I’ or mind can be found … [Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.Alan Watts (1951) The Wisdom of Insecurity

Quote originally sourced from ‘The Antidote’ By Oliver Burkeman