The capacity of the brain to forsee the future has much to do with the fear of death. For when the body is worn out and the brain is tired, the whole… - Alan Watts

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The capacity of the brain to forsee the future has much to do with the fear of death.
For when the body is worn out and the brain is tired, the whole organism welcomes death. But it is difficult to understand how death can be welcome when you are young and strong, so that you come to regard it as a dread and terrible event. For the brain, in its immaterial way, looks into the future and conceives it a good to go on and on and on forever — not realizing that its own material would at last find the process intolerably tiresome. Not taking this into account, the brain fails to see that, being itself material and subject to change, its desires will change, and a time will come when death will be good. On a bright morning, after a good night’s rest, you do not want to go to sleep. But after a hard day’s work the sensation of dropping into unconsciousness is extraordinarily pleasant.

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About Alan Watts

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Alan Wilson Watts Alan W. Watts
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Additional quotes by Alan Watts

For the coherent continuity of any one individual is much like a whirlpool in a river; it is “there” day after day, although the water itself never stays put. You could even say that there is no such thing as a whirlpool, but that the river is whirlpooling in the same way that the universe eyes and the plant flowers.

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