In The Book, he very eloquently explains how The Truth (for lack of a better term) cannot be named or described directly (else it wouldn’t be The Truth, no?), it’s something that is experienced personally, and differently, for each person. He goes on to explain how the great prophets and teachers have used myth and parables in order to point to It (see the works of Lao Tse, JC, Siddharta, etc). Unfortunately, as Watts puts it, we usually end up looking at the finger that’s pointing and never see the moon it’s trying to point us to.

And as with the finger, over time we humans largely find ourselves worshipping the teachers and ignoring the teaching, and we have all these splintered religions and denominations of religions and dogmas and untold killing and destruction as a result, the diametric opposite of what those teachers would have wanted.

According to Watts, the drive to “get somewhere,” to “succeed” (financially, materialistically), the need to BE RIGHT (usually by making others wrong), the ego-driven false philanthropy (whose proponents I believe Thoreau said “do more to create the suffering by their manner of living than the good they purport to do relieves”, or something like that)… they’re all the upshot of not knowing, or rather, not remembering, what we really are.

And he fills the book with myths, stories, parables and jokes to try and help point towards that. For me, in this and Watts’ other works, in addition to quite a few books by other authors, there’s a subtle “something” which rings so true, which reminds me that if I play along with the rat race, I do it by choice, and that it’s just perfect to be as simple as I am, and when I remember that, it makes all the difference in my trading and my life.

Keep your stop tight.