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| from Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The Film Version |
That said, I remain indebted to his introduction to The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity (NY: Braziller, 1963), which I first read secretly (since books were banned as “contraband”) while undergoing US Marine Corps infantry training. Back then, I was enamored by the resemblance between Watts’ essay and my own understanding of Gestalt theory (which had influenced him as well), which I had discovered as an undergraduate art student.
I wish his autobiography had been as precisely and sparingly phrased. But I would like to share the following passage, in which he bemoans his own education, and provides a list of components that he regards as more essential. Do not try this at home.
•••
Alan Watts, In My Own Way: An Autobiography, 1915-1965. NY: Pantheon Books, 1972, pp. 92-93–
[In an ideal education] I would have arranged for myself to be taught survival techniques for both natural and urban wildernesses. I would want to have been instructed in self hypnosis, in azkido (the esoteric and purely self-defensive style of judo), in elementary medicine, in sexual hygiene, in vegetable gardening, in astronomy, navigation, and sailing; in cookery and clothesmaking, in metalwork and carpentry, in drawing and painting, in printing and typography, in botany and biology, in optics and acoustics, in semantics and psychology, in mysticism and yoga, in electronics and mathematical fantasy, in drama and dancing, in singing and in playing an instrument by ear; in wandering, in advanced daydreaming, in prestidigitation, in techniques of escape from bondage, in disguise, in conversation with birds and beasts, in ventriloquism, and in classical Chinese.
