The call is to let go...to join the dance that has been going on for billions of years, to sing the song that is already singing itself through you
Just yesterday I posted a video about letting go, and this morning I opened to this beautiful wisdom from Alan Watts about letting go to the playful flow of Life.
To many of us take life too seriously, don't we? We fail to enjoy the felt experience of in this here and now. As a writer, (one of my many false roles that I am getting less and less attached to) I loved this analogy.
We are like people reading a novel. Who are only interested in getting to the last page. And so we skim. We turn the pages frantically, missing all the poetry, all the drama, all the lovely descriptions just to see how it turns out. Then when we get there, we close the book and say, "Is that all?"
The whole point of the book was in the reading, in the living through it.
This is what happens when life becomes a problem to be solved, rather than a reality to be experienced.
We are so busy measuring life we forget to live it....
We need to let go of our need to measure Life, rush Life, figure It out, control It, or struggle against It. We need to let go of this idea that Life is a hard and serious thing we must learn to maneuve. Yes, as I have discovered again and again, Life can be serious and pretty darn challenging at times. That doesn't mean we have to be serious in our response to It.
You can play a serious game without taking it seriously.
We do not need to take it so seriously. Letting go is letting go of this seriousness.
The true opposite of taking Life seriously is to see it as play...to see the Universe itself as fundamentally playful.
Look at nature. Does it look serious to you? ...look at a kitten chasing its tail...waves lapping against the shore...do they look like they are on a grim mission? Do the clouds look they are filled with existential dread? No, they are simply playing...they are expressing themselves.
Wu Wei is effortless action.
It doesn't mean doing nothing...it means acting without straining...without forcing. It is the way of water....it does not strive, it simply flows and in that flowing it accomplsihes everything.
Life is also not something we have to spend all our energy figuring out. We do not strive to awaken to truth...we enjoy the process of awakening here and now.
The world is not something you have to figure out. It is something to be tasted, touched, heard, and seen. You are not a passenger in the universe, being taken for a ride. You are the universe experiencing itself.
Wu Wei can often be translated to mean purposelessness or effortless action. Life is not about strain, struggle, effort to get somewhere up ahead...to get to the ending of the great novel so we have all the answers. It is about enjoying and experiencing each page we read, each moment we live here and now. It is about going with the flow of Life and trusting it will take us to where we need to be, enjoying the ride as we travel along.
So, your only obligation if there is one is to be true to the deepest truth of your being...that you are a unique, irreplacebale temporary expression of the whole universe...and the universe is not serious. It is playful. It is joyful. It is a great cosmic game of hide and seek where it is both the hider and the seeker. So, go on play, experiement. Be foolish. Be magnificent. Fail gloriously. Succeed lightly. Love. Lose. Feel it all. But whatever you do, don't miss the show by being too busy looking for the meaning behind it. The meaning is in the music. The meaning is in the dance. And you...you are the music; you are the dance.
Learn to Let Go!
All is well.
Alan Watts & Wisdom ( September, 2025) Don't Take Life Too Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrLObPkEnsM
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