Comment by throwanem
2 days ago
It is with the confidence of decades of experience I can say that to quote Alan Watts aloud is a sign of desperately needing to read another book.
2 days ago
It is with the confidence of decades of experience I can say that to quote Alan Watts aloud is a sign of desperately needing to read another book.
Is anything in that quote so wrong that it invalidates the larger point the quote is meant to illustrate?
What am I meant to think the experience of providing IT support shares with that of the bodhisattva nature, such that quoting the ever tiresome Watts at paragraph length is meant to aid understanding of either? It's just a lot of self-aggrandizing humblebragging nonsense, "look whose name I drop and you don't." Good grief, in this millennium having had an encounter with Watts doesn't even really qualify anyone as being familiar with the literature.
If one means to say it's not people's fault that computers suck to use and they shouldn't be blamed for exhibiting some emotional dismay when forced to do so anyway, then one may say so clearly and concisely, and without insisting on oneself even by implication.
Your reading comprehension seems to be lacking. Maybe you should read more books?
What I meant to convey, seven years ago, when writing that comment making the analogy to Zen Buddhism (as described by Alan Watts at least) was that there are those who come to understand technology and immediately go off and despise and belittle all the people who don’t understand it. There are also those who come to understand technology and can explain the relevant parts to those who don’t understand it, and help them handle technology to help them in their lives, without belittling them or even secretly/silently looking down on or feeling superior to them in any way. This dichotomy seemed to me to be very similar to what Alan Watts once described about Zen Buddhism.
But sure, you keep berating people for daring to quote something by someone so plebeian as Alan Watts, in a seven year old comment. I’m sure it will help you get along with people.
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