This Is It

In This Is It, Alan Watts treats fulfillment as something found in present experience, not something postponed until success, escape, or self-improvement arrives. He emphasizes that “now” is not limited to ecstatic states. Feeling heavy, confused, or trapped is still part of present reality. The point is not that the present must feel good, but that life is only ever encountered as it is happening.

In This Is It, Alan Watts questions the familiar picture of a separate inner self that owns experience and directs the body like a controller. He argues that thoughts, perception, body, and world arise together, rather than being commanded by a hidden operator. The point is not to deny action, but to drop the idea that a second self must supervise the first. This reframes “control” as participation, not domination.

In This Is It, Alan Watts refuses the idea that Zen is guaranteed by either institutions or rebellion. He respects formal Zen, yet does not treat organizations as machines that produce awakening. He also declines to romanticize “beat” informality as automatically freer. Instead, he allows that both discipline and looseness may open insight, and both can harden into poses when used to prove how liberated someone is.

In This Is It, Alan Watts challenges the demand to choose between earthly pleasure and spiritual purity. He argues that a pure attempt to escape the body becomes thin, while pure pleasure can dodge sickness, death, and wonder. Rather than treating the world as a distraction from the divine, he presents love of the world and love of the divine as able to deepen one another. This does not promise constant enjoyment; pleasure and pain are linked.

In This Is It, Alan Watts treats chemically aided insight as something that can illuminate and mislead. He does not dismiss LSD experiences, but he refuses to equate vividness with wisdom. Some sessions made his philosophy feel more immediate; others raised doubts that called for checking and criticism. He emphasizes discernment, guidance, spacing sessions, and staying alert to alternative explanations for what felt revealed. The stance is open-minded, not credulous.