Filosofo e teologo inglese del XX secolo, Alan Watts è stato ecclesiastico, docente e scrittore. Si è occupato principalmente della filosofia del maoismo, dello zen e del buddismo.

My goodness, don't you remember when you went first to school?

You went to kindergarten.

And in kindergarten, the idea was to push along so to get into first grade.

And then push along so that you could get into second-grade, third grade and so on, going up and up.

And then you went to high school and this was a great transition in life.

And now the pressure is being put on, you must get ahead

You must go up the grades and finally be good enough to go to college.

And then when you get to college, you’re still going step by step, step by step.

Up to the great moment in which you're ready to go out into the world.

And then when you get out into this famous world, comes the struggle for success in profession or business.

And then, suddenly, when you are about forty or forty-five years old, in the middle of life

You wake up one day and say: Huh?

I've arrived.

And while it is of tremendous use for us to be able to look ahead and to plan,

there is no use planning for a future

Which when you get to it, and it becomes the present, you won’t be there.

You’ll be living in some other future that hasn’t yet arrived.

And so in this way, one is never able actually to inherit and enjoy the fruits of one's actions.

You can't live at all, unless you can live fully, Now.