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Tag: Alan Watts

Jeanne Moreau, Start With Why, Adaptation, Einzelgänger, and an African Proverb

Jeanne Moreau, Start With Why, Adaptation, Einzelgänger, and an African Proverb

Published by Drew Alexander Ross on March 10, 2024

Sunday Supplement #148 (March 10th, 2024)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

Please take something away from these recommendations that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“Life is an accomplishment and each moment has a meaning and you must use it.”

– Jeanne Moreau

Book of the Week:

Start With Why – Simon Sinek

I’ve featured Simon Sinek in many previous Sunday Supplement posts, but mainly as a Brainfood of the Week post.

This is the first time I’ve posted about his books. I only read the book a few weeks ago, but it’s easily one of my favorite nonfiction books.

In Start With Why, Sinek breaks down different historical people and companies and how they created a lasting impact.

Sinek’s examination of how so many companies fail to act from a place that resonates with the people they want to attract is profound.

I cannot recommend this book more highly because it gives an excellent insight on where we should operate from as people and through industry.

Movie of the Week:

Adaptation

Charlie Kaufman is known for his bizarre and existential movies, such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich.

Kaufman’s screenplay Adaptation is my favorite movie of his. It is excellently directed by Spike Jonze and has a brilliant cast that includes Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Adaptation tells the story of a screenwriter who suffers from writer’s block as he struggles to adapt Susan Orlean’s nonfiction book The Orchid Thief.

If you haven’t seen any of Kaufman’s work, a forewarning: his stories are bizarre. The humor and satire about the Hollywood industry in this movie are fantastic.

Kaufman’s movies are hard to summarize, but if you like quirky movies, give this one a try. The final act is an interesting meta-critique of Blockbuster films. Let me know what you think.

Brainfood of the Week:

Stop Trying to Get It And You’ll Have It | The Backwards Law | Einzelgänger

This video discusses Alan Watts’ Backwards Law. It also discusses other philosophers, such as Arthur Schopenhauer and writers, like Mark Manson, in relation to the law.

The Backwards Law states the more we pursue something, the more we achieve the opposite of what we truly want and the more disappointed we feel.

Einzelgänger states the difference between external pursuits and internal desires. Wanting to run marathons and working toward it is a good thing, whereas setting a goal as a benchmark for happiness is a trap.

The video explores how the theory works in practice, not just in concept, and there are many gems from this video worth picking up.

I’ve featured Einzelgänger’s channel in previous Sunday Supplements. If you’ve enjoyed this video, check out the other posts or his channel on YouTube.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“A person is a person because of other people.”

– African Proverb

This African proverb, which Desmond Tutu has quoted, refers to the word/philosophy of Ubuntu: “I am because we are.”

For me, this proverb reminds me how important community and our own actions are to the shaping of lives.

So many things can impact our lives, but people are probably the most impactful on other people’s lives. Whether these are people in our lives, the people we see on television, or the people we read about in books, they can influence our perceptions.

I think it’s essential to filter other people’s influences on us to ensure we’re allowing the best to get through. Knowing that our actions and others can have significant effects is also important.

Make sure you see the meaning in your life, and have a blessed week ahead!

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Andy Warhol, The Mindbody Prescription, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Alan Watts, and a Buddhist Parable

Andy Warhol, The Mindbody Prescription, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Alan Watts, and a Buddhist Parable

Published by Drew Alexander Ross on April 10, 2022

Sunday Supplement #48 (April 10th, 2022)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

I hope you take something away from these recommendations that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“Perception precedes reality.”

– Andy Warhol

Book of the Week:

The Mindbody Prescription – John E. Sarno

John E. Sarno has a historic career in medicine, graduating with degrees from Michigan and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in the mid 20th century.

Sarno famously came up with the term tension myositis syndrome to encompass a psychosomatic condition that produces body pain, usually back pain.

In his national bestseller, The Mindbody Prescription, Sarno outlines how our minds and bodies operate in unison on multiple levels.

One of the topics Sarno dissects is the phenomenon of the ulcer that highlights this connection. 

Ulcers were a common medical ailment until they were discovered to be caused by stress. When this research came through, the number of ulcer cases significantly dropped.

Sarno explains how our minds, when undergoing immense stress, can trigger physical pain in our bodies, culminating in various ailments. 

The book delves into the mind-body connection and how we can prevent sickness and injury through proper care of both our minds and bodies. 

It is an intriguing read and worth checking out.

Movie of the Week:

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The A24 film Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the best theater-going experiences I’ve had in a long time.

The movie follows a Chinese immigrant woman who gets recruited on a strange adventure. She is the only person who can save the world by connecting with other versions of herself in different universes to stop a being from destroying them all.

Everything Everywhere All at Once might sound like an overwhelming movie, but the writer-directors excellently guide the viewers along the bizarrely amazing journey.

Currently, this film boasts a 97% critics score and a 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Themes in the movie like generational trauma, metaphysics, and nihilism vs. optimism are brilliantly explored throughout.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is still in theaters, and it is worth seeing if you have the chance to go and see it.

Brainfood of the Week:

Alan Watts – Perception | T&H Inspiration and Motivation

T&H Inspiration and Motivation’s mission is to share inspiring wisdom. The goal is to have people pause, think, and reflect. 

In Sunday Supplement #16, I featured a clip of Alan Watts discussing how life is not meant to be a journey but rather a dance.

This video clip features Alan Watts discussing perception. 

Watts explains how our attention is captured by figures rather than backgrounds and moving things rather than something relatively still. 

We attribute a higher degree of reality to these things than those we don’t notice. 

Watts described consciousness as a radar that scans the environment looking for trouble. The radar doesn’t recognize the vast space between objects.

Our eyes and our consciousness only pay attention to what we think is important. It is a myopic way of looking at things that screens out anything that isn’t immediately important. 

We are much more than this scanning system. It is okay to be on the lookout for danger, but we often make too much of it and shouldn’t be operating in those parameters all the time.

The video goes into further depth about perception and our experiences, but it is worth hearing the ten-minute clip from Watts firsthand.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“Two monks return to their monastery from a trip abroad. The road is muddy, and they reach an intersection where a beautiful woman wearing an intricate kimono waits, afraid to get her dress dirty. One of the monks walks over to her and offers to carry her across the road. The observing monk watches in horror as his brother helps the woman. The watching monk seethes all the way back to the temple. When he gets there, he chastises the other monk for touching a woman, which is forbidden. His brother tells the fellow monk that he only carried the woman for a minute while the watching monk carried her the whole day.”

– Buddhist Parable

I’ll keep this section short as the quote is long, and I think the parable speaks for itself.

This Buddhist parable is one of my favorite stories that illustrates how our thoughts influence our reality.

The seething monk spends his entire day thinking about one minute, letting that one minute affect his mood.

The other monk’s response reminds us that we can put down our thoughts and move on with our day.

Certainly, some events can linger with us and require time and space to process, but I’m reminded of this parable whenever I’ve carried a thought for too long.

Put down any thoughts weighing you down for a while, and have a blessed week ahead!

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Plato, A Clockwork Orange, Howl’s Moving Castle, Alan Watts, and Quran 30:21

Plato, A Clockwork Orange, Howl’s Moving Castle, Alan Watts, and Quran 30:21

Published by Drew Alexander Ross on August 29, 2021

Sunday Supplement #16 (August 29th, 2021)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

I hope you take something away from this post that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”

– Plato

Book of the Week:

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess is most recognized for the massive success of his novel A Clockwork Orange, which he gave credit to Stanley Kubrick for the movie adaptation. The film is a cinematic masterpiece for many reasons, but it is not a completely faithful adaptation of the novel. It also isn’t a great representation of Burgess’s work as a whole.

Most of Burgess’s creative writing was comedic, and he considered himself as much a composer as an author with over 250 musical pieces credited to his name. He was also a literary critic for The Observer and The Guardian and wrote studies of classic writers during his lifetime. For any who read A Clockwork Orange, though, it’s obvious why it’s his most famous work.

A Clockwork Orange takes place in a dystopian city that contains a youth subculture of acute violence. Gang leader, Alex, narrates his terrorizing journeys to the reader in a Russian-influenced English slang. Everything about the novel pushes the boundaries of good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. The primary arc of the book follows Alex’s adventures, his imprisonment for his crimes, and his subsequent release after he has been “reformed.” 

What most people will miss if they’ve only seen the Kubrick film is the final chapter the famous director omitted. This chapter brings an entirely different perspective to the end of the story and is worth the whole read to find out where Burgess intended to leave Alex. The novel takes a chapter or two to get used to the language, but it is well worth pursuing. It is on many top lists of “Greatest English Novels” and deserves its place in literary history.

Movie of the Week:

Howl’s Moving Castle

A shy young woman is cursed to an elderly age by a spiteful witch. Her only chance of reversing the curse is in the hands of a self-indulgent, insecure young wizard and his bizarre walking castle. 

I highlighted Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke in Sunday Supplement #2, and this is another gem from the acclaimed Japanese animation studio. Any one of their films is worth checking out, but this is one of their best. The theme of self-belief throughout the film creates an uplifting and wonderful watch.

The movie creates a beautiful blend of magic and realism. The internal journeys of each character have depth and meaning that come from a brilliantly adapted story. The scenery is breathtaking, and the magic in the film allows director Hayao Miyazaki to bring out the best of his creativity. I highly recommend the Japanese version, but you get Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Emily Mortimer, Blythe Danner, and Lauren Bacall voicing the characters if you choose the English audio.

If you missed my post about Princess Mononoke, check it out, and add Howl’s Moving Castle to your list of animation films to watch. The former wasn’t nominated for Best Animated Film at the Academy Awards, but the latter was one of the picks, and both were deserving of the win. They are considered animated classics and wonderful films.

Brainfood of the Week:

An Alan Watts clip “Life is NOT a Journey” — animated by After Skool.

After Skool is a YouTube channel that animates videos as the backdrop to various life lessons presented by various individuals and texts.

Alan Watts is most known for breaking down and popularizing Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism for the Western world. He became known through his role as a volunteer programmer at KPFA radio station in Berkeley, California. Throughout his life, he wrote over 25 books and articles about religion and philosophy. The Way of Zen was one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. Various of his other works put forth ideas and philosophies about human consciousness and existence.

In this video, Alan Watts talks about existence in the universe. He maintains that the universe is meant to be playful. He explains this through an analogy of music and art. The meaning in both is not determined by any destination but by the act itself. However, this concept is not something we see reflected in everyday conduct. The idea of a destination is brought on by many constructs in our society but often leaves the individual missing out on a deeper experience of life.

The After Skool video provides a cool animation of a brilliant monologue by Watts. It is a short clip and puts forth a positive perspective on engaging the world around us.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.”

– Quran 30:21

This passage from the Quran can be broken down in many different ways. One is the idea that we need companionship. From this, I take the word mate as meaning both intimate relationships and also the British slang for friend. I believe both provide significant meaning to our lives and help us be our best selves, have peace, and find purpose in life.

Another thing I pull from this passage is the idea of affection and mercy in love and friendship, meaning being there for support, especially in vulnerable moments. This isn’t always easy when you aren’t at your best, but it reminds me to be clear with my communication and inquire what is the best way to support them.

This coincides with the last part, which mentions the signs for people who give thought. In my opinion, meaningful relationships come when you give them thought and are present. You always have the time to be there for everyone at every moment, but I believe when you are with someone, you should give them your full attention and support.

I enjoyed coming across this passage from the Quran and hope you take something away from it that brings a positive perspective to your life.

Give the people you’re with your full attention and have a blessed week ahead!

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