Alan Watts was a man whose words of wisdom have long reached far and wide. The British-born but San-Francisco-localized philosopher was one of the most recognized Western interpreters of Eastern philosophy; his students comprise of everyone from the Beatnicks and the flower children to punk and grunge kids and whatever other “enlightened” East-meets-West movements came and will come about. The Way of Zen was the new bible of sorts, turning swaths of populations from the United States to the United Kingdom and further onto Buddhism. That isn’t to say Buddhism didn’t have a foothold in the Western world before, simply that Watts popularized it with the outspoken youth; an outspoken youth that had legs in the way of reach.
He was able to have such a profound effect because he connected on the kind of emotional levels that had been, to an extent, shunned in previous eras. His writings and monologues rang true across generations, especially as people began to seek out a more holistic fulfillment from their lives, as opposed to the fulfillment that comes from meeting societal standards. One of his most notable monologues is undoubtedly “What If Money Was No Object?” (featured above in video and below in transcription). Like Charles Bukowski’s “So, You Want to Be a Writer?” it encourages people to respond to passion and inspiration rather than subscribing to what might be viewed as expected, or what is deemed productive in a societal context and thereby desirable.
Watts goes so far as to encourage people to ignore the trappings of money and to follow their heart as if money was indeed no object, and that if they truly commit to that pursuit, then money will come.
However much I agree with the underlying provocation, I have always had a problem with their messages. You see, Watts and Bukowski are both personal heroes of mine, and the passages I have referenced above are among my favorite. But the thing is, money is an object. While many of us would like to play the role of free spirit, that simply isn’t the way our stories are told — at least most of our stories. There are responsibilities, both individual and collective, that make such an archetypically unattached character a non-starter.
When I first gave thought to their messages, in high school or college, they upset me — they were selfish and ultimately bred a sense of entitlement in people. But that was then, before my own life experiences brought me to the realization that the underlying provocation is exactly that: underlying. A little over a year ago, I sat in a SoHo office having co-created and launched an editorial property that looked to be rather promising (and has since proved to be). In the years prior, I held significant positions in New York media, which I was told in college meant something. At first glance, I was doing quite well. Yet in spite of the “success” I had to date, I wasn’t happy.
In chasing the manufactured dream of professional and monetary success, I had cast aside the honest dream of mental and emotional fulfillment. Thus I packed up my bags, said my goodbyes, and chased what had always instilled an unparalleled passion and inspiration in me: the outdoors. Then I found a job to provide me with the foundation to lay chase. And although this life I’m living isn’t what my Public Policy professors identified as the life I should aspire to, I’m happy, and the discrepancies between the manufactured dream and honest dream are, frankly, forgotten.
Anyway, the transcription of “What If Money Was No Object?” below:
What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?
Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say, well, “we’re getting out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do.” So I always ask the question, “what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?”
Well, it’s so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way. Or another person says well, I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses. I said you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it. What do you want to do?
When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.
And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it – you could eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much.
That’s everybody is – somebody is interested in everything, anything you can be interested in, you will find others will. But it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like, in order to go on spending things you don’t like, doing things you don’t like and to teach our children to follow in the same track.
See what we are doing, is we’re bringing up children and educating to live the same sort of lives we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing, so it’s all retch, and no vomit it never gets there.
And so, therefore, it’s so important to consider this question:
What do I desire?
