Everything Under the Sun

Alan Watts, in one of his many profound lectures, famously fleshed out the cliche phrase 'Life is about the journey, not the destination.' He drew the analogy of music as part of his thesis. "You don't work the piano," he said, "you play the piano." When you listen to a beautiful piece of music, you don't skip to the end, or anticipate the final note, but instead, you enjoy the verses, the chorus, the bridge, and the final notes. We should adopt the same mentality when it comes to our lives, he surmised. The greatest authors, the ones with truly captivating abilities, practice this phenomena in their work. Non fiction and fiction alike, act in the same manner as a work of music. The best reads are dynamic, unpredictable, complex, and sometimes partially left unresolved. An author, for example, such as Jordan Peterson, attempting to disseminate the psychological significance of biblical stories while maintaining a partial stance towards literary i...