In My Own Way by Alan Watts

Author:Alan Watts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781577319931
Publisher: New World Library
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chicago, Illinois, July 5, 1950

In his position, could any response have been more courteous and charitable?

1 J. P. de Caussade, Abandonment to the Divine Providence, trans. Ella McMahon (New York, 1887), 2. 10, pp. 79–81.

2 Originally published by Pantheon Books, New York, this book was reissued by that publisher in 1971.

CHAPTER NINE

INTERLUDE

The six months I spent at Thornecrest Farmhouse in Millbrook were an interlude between two careers: priest at Northwestern University and teacher at the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, and thereafter philosopher-at-large, free-lance, gyrovagus, unaffiliated. Sometimes, half in jest, I call myself a philosophical entertainer, because I have some difficulty in taking myself and my work seriously—or perhaps the right word is “pompously.” For this reason, halfway through the job, I find it somewhat embarrassing to be writing so much about myself, that is about the personality “Alan Watts,” because all personality is a big act and a “put-on.” As often pointed out, the very word “person” meant the actor’s mask in Graeco-Roman drama, and I wear many masks, seeing that “all the world’s a stage” and that I love to act. For this reason, people sometimes wonder if I ever show my true and natural self, and whether I am even in touch with it.

When I first came to the United States I used to dress rather formally, in the British style, to wear a hat, and to carry gloves and a silver-topped cane. I did not affect my way of speaking, save to Americanize it rather slightly and quite deliberately, for I have always been aware of my own voice as a pianist is aware of his fingers. Basically, I speak the same English as my father (and mother) and he, and his father, spoke it in just the same way as King George V. I realized, however, that to Americans I appeared affected, distant, and a little haughty. Thus the United States immigration officer at Montreal gruffed at me, “Whaddya carry a cane for? You sick?” “Not at all,” I replied. “It’s just for swank.” It must be understood that to cultured Englishmen and Europeans there is nothing unnatural in developing a certain personal style, with even a touch of swagger, provided one does it with humor and avoids making a caricature of oneself. The motto of Winchester School is “Manners Makyth Man.”

But to most Americans the high style of British speech and manners seems blatantly put-on and offensive, as if anyone who speaks with a lilt and says, “Oah, it’s reahlly awfully nice to be in Ameddica,” were assuming airs and graces, and a refinement to which he is not entitled. For in America, which in declaring its independence also disclaimed royalty, even the top brass are obliged to appear unaristocratic, casual, folksy, and natural, and it took me some time to realize that this was just as much an affectation as British urbanity. In Europe men were unequal, and no attempt was made to conceal it. In America men are unequal—and

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