The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety

Despite being published over 70 years ago, The Wisdom of Insecurity has remained incredibly relevant. In December 2022, it was the #1 bestseller on Amazon in Zen Buddhism and Modern Philosophy. In an age of personal computers, video games, social media, and smartphones, Watts’s critiques of modern life’s “constant titillation of the ears, eyes, and nerve ends with incessant streams of almost inescapable noise and visual distractions” (61) are more salient than ever. His diagnosis of anxiety, fear, and escapism seems prescient, and his calls for a joyful return to the present moment more necessary than ever.

In the 1950s, the myth of the American Dream reached its climax, entailing a comfortable heteronormative marriage, children, an ideal home with a two-car garage, and steady corporate employment with a solid pension plan. Given that such a life was achievable for many white American men (Watts’s primary audience at the time) in the booming post-war American economy, it was strongly encouraged by cultural conservatives, who promoted a large, well-to-do middle class and an adjoining materialistic lifestyle. The Wisdom of Insecurity challenged this dominant cultural narrative. Instead of the endlessly delayed gratification offered by the American Dream, one that walled-up individuals within nests of possessions and achievements, Watts advocated for life lived for the present moment. The way forward, Watts believed, was not to escape our fundamental insecurity through the anxious pursuit of materialist comfort. Instead, it was in the appreciation of the beauty, wonder, and majesty of present experience and the natural world.

In the 1960s, the Hippie movement reacted against the perceived excesses of modern American society including commercialism, materialism, racism, sexism, and the Vietnam War. As a strong proponent of a spiritual mysticism at odds with traditional religious norms and moral codes, Watts resonated with many in the Hippie generation. In helped that Watts had been living in near San Francisco for well over a decade in Druid Heights, a commune that housed artists and philosophers. By the mid-60s San Francisco had become the urban hub of counter-cultural America. Watts’s public radio broadcasts, public lectures, and short-lived television show all helped ensure that the ideas of The Wisdom of Insecurity were widely disseminated to a receptive audience.

Watts was an early popularizer of Eastern religion and philosophy in the West. His interest in comparative religion remains influential today. In academia, Asian Studies departments are increasingly common, and Eastern philosophy is taught at most universities. In the wider culture, the 21st century has seen a growing interest in mindfulness—the keen awareness of one’s present that is the fundamental concern of The Wisdom of Insecurity. Mindfulness focuses on the impact that attention to one’s immediate surroundings and experiences have on consciousness. Though Watts obviously cannot be given all the credit for this development, his writings have been influential for generations. Spiritual teachers like Thích Nhất Hạnh and self-help authors like Eckhardt Tolle have reached wide Western audiences across the globe by promoting similar ideas for mindful living, updating Watts’s ideas to critique the rat-race of modern society and promote awareness of the joy and mystery of life in the present.