“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It’s so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic, as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
—Alan Watts

o much of modern spirituality is exceptionally passive, bordering on quietism. Nothing to strive for, nothing to accomplish, nothing to achieve or do. There’s no understanding of “the middle way.”

Just be present, they say. Let go, they say. Accept, they say.

But in my world, process is everything. Meaning, you can either work very hard with stress, worry, panic, overwhelm and self-hatred, or you can work very hard with calm, joy, pleasure, mindfulness, and compassion. Those are two very different processes!

So the language Alan Watts uses is significant. He says, “…rushes around in a great panic,” which betrays the process of suffering, or The Dark Room. Here, I would agree with him. No, you do not have to rush around in a great panic, but you can move about quickly with clarity and focus.

I work under deadlines. But I don’t feel that what I am achieving is something beyond myself. Nor is it necessary. It is an extension of myself, a flowering of my being like the fragrance of a blossom that can’t help but perfume the air with itself.

The way I am alive is not the same as others are alive. I work hard and sleep very hard. I am alive simply sitting, and I am alive running about quickly.

From what is always, constantly in flux and from what is constantly and eternally unchanged. The middle way.