The Personality and Who We Really Are: More Wisdom from Alan Watts

 

I am thee. All is Thine. Thy Will be done.

I listened to Alan Watts this morning and it helped me to reflect deeper on my thoughts about personality and that which we really are. 

I love his take on personality.

This you that you take so seriously...this ego, this personality...what is it? Where did it come from? 

If you look for it, it is rather elusive. It is a collection of memories, a bundle of desires and fears, a certain pattern of behavior. It is a story you tell yourself and others about who you are. "I am a person who likes this and dislikes that. I am someone who did this and failed to do that". It is a concept, a thought. And like all thoughts, it is fleeting. It has no solidity. You cannot locate it in the body.

Once we see beyond this personality we come to terms with who we really are.

What you call "me" is something the universe is doing right here and right now. It is a temporary dancing pattern, a gesture and like a gesture in the air it is fundamentally empty..

When you don't take your ego so seriously, a wonderful thing happens...you begin to relax. The constant low grade anxiety of having to protect this fragile fictional self begins to dissolve. You can afford to be more spontaneous. You can afford to be foolish. You can afford to make mistakes. 

We can learn to simply be ourselves. Not the idea of ourselves, but the living, breathing immediate reality of ourselves.

So much of our lfe energies are built around building, maintaining and defending these personalities ...this overidentification with the roles we are playing that we don't live the lives we are meant to live. We suffer. It doesn't have to be that way. When we get beyond "me", we can be free.

When you are no longer defending a fragile self image you become incredibly strong. Criticism doesn't shatter you, failure doesn't define you, success doesn't inflate you. You can flow with circumstances. You can adapt. You can be like water which is soft and yielding, yet which can eventually wear away the hardest rock. This is not passivity. This is supreme intelligence. It is action which is in accord with the total situation, not just with your narrow, selfish desire. It is the action of the whole universe expressing itself through you.

Going from self to Self is freedom from obligation and unworthiness.

You do not need permission to be. You do not need to earn the right to be here. You are here because you are here. 

It is freedom from exhausting struggle

You don't try. Trying is the energy of the seperate ego, the energy of seriousnesse ...any effort to become something is a rejection of what you already are...which is the energy of the cosmos.

It is a better use of the energy  within us.

When you are not wasting energy definding an idea of yourself, ou have immense energy for Life

It is an invitation for faith and trust to replace fear.

Trust yourself, trust your own nature, and the nature of which you are a part

Getting beyond personality to Who We Truly Are is free of obligation.

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, experiment. Be foolish. Be magnificent. Fail gloriously. Succeed lightly. Love. Lose. Feel it all. ..You...you are the music; you are the dance.

Remember who You Are.

All is well

Alan Watts & Wisdom (September, 2025) Don't Take life Too Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrLObPkEnsM