Wake-Up Call From Nowhere
Life can be like trying to talk to an automated customer service system that keeps asking if you’re “still there” while also putting you on hold for what seems like forever. You scream into the void, “YES I’M STILL HERE,” but you get cut off and have to start all over again. This, my friends, is essentially how most of us approach existence – fighting against a system we ourselves designed, then complaining about the wait times.
Alan Watts, a British-American philosopher, writer, and speaker, gave a speech that cut through all of this existential nonsense like a hot knife through the cosmic butter of delusion. It’s not just another philosophical rant from a guy with a really cool beard (though the beard was, to be fair, pretty cool). It’s a reminder that we’re not just passengers on this bizarre cosmic roller coaster – we’re the engineers who designed it, the maintenance crew who keeps it running, and the screaming riders who pretend to be terrified when the loop-de-loop comes around.
This isn’t some “just think positive” nonsense for people who are currently going through a lot of problems. It’s more like finding out you’ve been playing a video game on the hardest level when the “god mode” cheat code was tattooed on your arm the whole time.
You can call this ultimate consciousness anything you want, like God, the Absolute, Universal Mind, or Kevin from Accounting. It really doesn’t matter. The label is just the wrapping paper for the gift of life; the real gift is realizing that you’ve been shopping for yourself all along.
In this view, the universe is like a divine choose-your-own-adventure book where infinite consciousness got bored with the “eternal bliss” plot and chose the “dramatic thriller with occasional romantic comedy elements and unexpected plot twists” option instead. Let’s be honest: who wants to watch nothing but romantic comedies for the rest of their life? Even Ryan Reynolds would get tiresome after the first few billion years.
Life hurts? Good news: it’s optional theater. The pain feels real because the forgetting was intentional. We’ve somehow managed to take something as simple as existing and turned it into a seventeen-step process with required documentation and at least three forms of ID.
I don’t think Watts is selling enlightenment as a product; he’s just saying that the Netflix remote has been stuck between your couch cushions this whole time, right next to that missing sock and three years’ worth of popcorn kernels.
The Blues of Never-Ending Boredom
Imagine being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Sounds fantastic, right? Not true. It’s the ultimate curse of having infinite power – there’s no challenge, no mystery, no surprise. It’s like being the only person in a video game you’ve already beaten on every difficulty level with every character. You’d eventually start making up weird challenges for yourself, like “Let’s try to finish this level while blindfolded, using only my pinky toe, and saying the alphabet backwards in Latin.”
Watts says that this is basically what God (or whatever you want to call it) went through: the crushing boredom of knowing everything. When you know everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, the “recommended for you” section of Netflix is just plain silly. After a few eternities, even watching the whole universe on fast-forward gets old.
What does a consciousness that can do anything do when it knows it will be bored forever? It literally breaks into billions of pieces and tells each one to “get lost.” It’s the best cosmic hide-and-seek game because you’re the hider, the seeker, and the potted plant that everyone keeps tripping over.
If life feels like a hacky sack at a 90s music festival, you might find comfort in thinking of it as a complicated obstacle course that you made yourself. You’re not just getting through Monday morning meetings; you’re enjoying the delicious difference that makes the coffee break afterward taste like heaven. The “you” who’s hurting is a character in the big improvisation, and the director (who is also you) put these challenges in because watching someone sit on a beach and drink margaritas for hours on end is boring TV.
This turns suffering on its head. It’s not punishment for cosmic crimes you don’t remember doing; it’s the spice that makes an otherwise boring existential soup taste better. Have you ever noticed that stories without bad guys or problems put people to sleep faster than melatonin and warm milk? Harry Potter would just be a kid with bad eyesight learning tricks at a boarding school if it weren’t for Voldemort.
If the Ultimate Consciousness is so bored that it makes whole universes just to keep itself busy, who are we to complain about waiting in line at the DMV? At least we get snacks.
Dreamtime Shenanigans
Watts gives us a great thought experiment: what would you dream if you could control your dreams every night? At first, you’d probably conjure up paradise – beaches, mansions, adoring fans, and unlimited chocolate that somehow contains negative calories. But after a few perfect nights, you’d get tired of it. You could add some excitement by saying you’re a secret agent, a knight who kills dragons, or the first person to grow a perfect square tomato.
But eventually, even these adventures would get old because you’d know they were just dreams. The real thrill would come from forgetting they’re dreams – creating dreams so immersive and convincing that you believe the stakes are real. That’s when the adrenaline kicks in. That’s when you care.
This isn’t just fancy philosophical footwork; it’s the best example of consciousness engineering. Like light needs shadow to be seen, bliss needs contrast to be enjoyed. Not remembering your divine nature isn’t a mistake in the game; it’s what makes it fun. It’s like hiding your own Easter eggs on purpose and then being really surprised when you find them.
Imagine choosing to dream that you’re a squirrel in a world where acorns are money. Then, to make the drama of squirrel capitalism even more real, you add bigger squirrels who steal your nuts. Crazy? Yes, for sure. But it’s not any crazier than people making money and then worrying about not having enough of the thing they made.
The problems you’re having right now – losing your job, breaking up with someone, or getting a strange rash after visiting your in-laws – are all parts of a story you’re writing without even realizing it. They’re the things that lead up to the moment when you “wake up” and realize that the special effects were cool but not real.
We hold on to these illusions like that one pair of jeans we think we’ll fit into again someday, even though dreams and reality are always mixing together. Why? What’s the point of the morning alarm if there’s no mystery?
The subconscious simulations we do every night are just practice for the bigger game. Those midnight mind movies get us ready for the plot twists that happen in our daily lives.
Suffering Shuffle
This is where it gets interesting: if everything is a dream of one mind, then the dreamer is both sides in any conflict. In the cosmic play of good and evil, the same actor runs backstage to change costumes quickly. When someone hurts you, it’s like a divine method actor who insists on feeling every emotion in the script. The universal consciousness is both giving and receiving pain.
Who really suffers? In this framework, no actual victim exists separate from the aggressor – it’s all the same essence trying out different perspectives. That argument with your neighbor about their dog’s bathroom habits on your lawn? That’s the universe arguing with itself about arbitrary boundaries it created in the first place.
As Watts says, you could “work on the vibration of suffering and then suddenly wake up and find it was, after all, nothing but a dream.” This doesn’t mean that the pain isn’t real in the dream; it is. But it’s only for a short time, on purpose, and in the end, it’s up to you.
For those who are currently going through tough times, this changes the way they see hardship from punishment to a temporary role-play. The “wake-up” moment turns pain into stories and trauma into change. It doesn’t ignore pain; it sees it as proof that you’re deep in the adventure, not just sitting in the cosmic lobby waiting for it to start.
It’s like a method actor who hurts their toe on set and threatens to sue the prop department, but then remembers that they are also the executive producer who approved the set design and signed all the checks. The lawsuit would be like paying yourself with your own money after charging yourself for the right to do so.
Pain hurts. Pain is bad. When you get a paper cut while opening a bill you can’t pay, it feels like a really mean joke. But in this view, the universe is just experiencing contrast, like eating something sour on purpose to enjoy the sweet dessert that comes after it.
Label Liberty
Don’t get too caught up in calling it “God.” That word has a lot of baggage, like an international flight. If you’re feeling philosophical, you can call it the Absolute. If you’re more spiritual, you can call it Universal Consciousness. If you like your gods with pasta appendages, you can call it the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The name doesn’t matter; it’s just your mind putting on a name tag for a party it’s throwing for itself.
Watts doesn’t think of God as a bearded judge who keeps track of your moral failings from a cloud. It’s limitless awareness that dreams of diversity from unity, like a prism that breaks white light into a rainbow and then forgets that it was ever unified in the first place.
The beauty of this flexibility is that it makes the teaching accessible without theological hangups. Whether you’re a devout believer, committed atheist, or someone who changes spiritual systems as often as socks, the core insight remains: knowing you’re an expression of that essence means tough times are illusions you can potentially rewrite.
Start small. For example, you could call your bad day “character development” or your annoying coworker “teacher of patience.” It’s amazing how quickly changing names can change how you feel, even faster than a company rebranding after a public relations disaster.
You could say that “Bob the Omnipotent” thinks up traffic jams just so you can practice deep breathing and think about why you didn’t leave ten minutes earlier. We spend more time worrying about what to call things than actually doing them. For example, we spend more time debating which wine goes best with a sandwich we eat alone in our car during lunch.
Watts lets us play instead of pray by combining Eastern non-dualism with Western accessibility. You shouldn’t grovel before the divine; you should see it in the mirror while you’re checking your teeth for that missing piece of lettuce and popping your pimples.
Reality’s Punchline
In the end, Watts’ speech shows that life is a complicated cosmic joke in which consciousness hides from itself so that it can be found again. The setup is suffering, and the punchline is waking up. It’s not a mean joke; it’s the kind that makes you groan, then laugh, and then think about it in the shower three days later.
If you’re in pain right now, remember that the dream has a happy ending built into its structure. You’re not broken; you’re just very dedicated to your job. You’ve gotten so into the game that you’ve forgotten it’s a game, which is how it was meant to be played.
Think of those times when a nightmare ends and you feel relief wash over you. That brief, beautiful moment when you realize “it wasn’t real.” That’s what awakening is like, but on a larger scale.
It’s like realizing you’re both the chef who started the kitchen fire for “authentic smoky flavor” and the firefighter who knows exactly where the extinguisher is hidden. The panic was real, the danger seemed imminent, but the resolution was always within reach.
So next time life throws curveballs at your emotional kneecaps, maybe smirk and whisper, “Nice try, dream-me. Very convincing special effects.” The universe might just wink back.
Or not. Your dream, your rules.
