Lesson 7: Thoughts Are a Veil Over Reality — Alan Watts, Veil of Thoughts

Lesson 7 of 25 — The Veil of Thoughts

This is Watts’s masterwork on overthinking, delivered decades before “overthinking” became a hashtag. His claim: we have confused the world as it is with the world as it is described — and the description has become a veil so convincing we mistake it for the scenery.

Money is his sharpest example. Money is a measure, like inches. And a society can talk itself into a depression — people hungry in front of full warehouses — because “there isn’t enough money,” which is exactly like refusing to build a house because you’ve run out of inches. A person who thinks all the time, Watts says, has nothing to think about except thoughts, and so loses touch with reality.

This is the authentic recording from the Official Alan Watts Org, the archive preserved by the Watts family. The complete remastered collections are at alanwatts.com.

Sit with this: Which “inches” in your life have you mistaken for the house?

Previous: Lesson 6 · Next: Lesson 12 — Beyond good and bad · All 25 lessons