The paradox of Alan Watts

There’s an advert for cruise holidays on television at the moment. It’s all dolphins and dining halls and laughing women flashing their teeth. Above the tinkly swelling music is a familiar voice. It’s the kind of clear English accent that might remind you of a compelling history teacher or vicar. ‘I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream any dream you wanted to dream,’ he says. ‘You would, I suppose, start out by fulfilling all your wishes, love affairs, banquets, wonderful journeys. And after you’d done that for some time, you’d forget that you were dreaming.’ 

The voice belongs to Alan Watts. He’s a strange choice for a cruise advertisement. Watts was a sixties hippie, a Zen Buddhist pop philosopher who sought to soothe the anxieties of the newly tuned in. Competitively priced holiday packages are not, you’d have thought, a central part of Zen Buddhist teaching.