The Wisdom of Insecurity
Also known as The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
Alan Watts's 1951 book on anxiety and living in the present.
At a glance
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- Watts argues that modern life is trapped in a self-reinforcing loop of striving for the future and dissatisfaction with the present.
- The book is subtitled A Message for an Age of Anxiety.
Why it matters
- It is one of Watts's best-known books, still quoted for its diagnosis of anxious, future-fixated living.
Key facts
- Author
- Alan Watts1
- Published
- 1951, Pantheon Books, New York1
- Later attention
- A 2015 Time piece by Shane Parish built largely on quotations from it1
Connections
Written by
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
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