Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it’s just doing it. – Alan Watts

I woke up one morning last week with a strange idea in my head. I don’t know where it came from, but it led to one of coolest “discoveries” I have made so far and I’d like to share it with you.

What’s strange about “discovering” something is that you aren’t “discovering” anything at all. You just think you are “discovering” something because it is the first time YOU noticed it. You are just noticing what was already there and chances are someone else already knew about it. Like Columbus discovering America – he didn’t discover anything. Millions of people already lived in America. To Columbus it was amazing and new, but I’m sure his “discovery” was quite annoying to those that didn’t know they had been “discovered.”

So at the risk of annoying you, I’m going to share my latest “discovery”.

I love the movie Fight Club because I identify with the characters at an intuitive level – I understand them. I used to think the story was about some sort of twisted violent schizophrenic self-improvement program (which is analgous with my life). But Thursday morning I thought, “I should google up Fight Club and Zen.” I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I was reading Zen Habits and Copyblogger just before bed.

To me Zen was just another modern pop culture buzzword. From my Midwest American Christian upbringing, I had no concept of what Zen really meant (I still don’t, but I’m working on it).

After “discovering” this article on Violence as Yoga by Dzintars Dzilna I was hooked into an obsessive mission to understand something strange and foreign.

Then I “discovered” the English born Zen Master Alan Watts. I have never found a man’s ideas more thought provoking. His essay on The Value of Psychotic Experience is outstanding – if you like to think about consciousness and existence. It challenged my conventions so thoroughly I felt a twinge of insanity, which is really fun, you should try it sometime. Check out this series of mp3s of Watts talking about the Pursuit of Pleasure.

Links to content by Alan Watts:
Lectures and Essays
Audio
Video

I also “discovered” author Brad Warner who wrote Hardcore Zen. Be sure to check out his list of articles at the bottom of his home page. I haven’t read his book yet, but I have it on order from Amazon and I plan to review it.

That’s what I’ve been doing since Thursday, “discovering” what many of you may have already “discovered.” But if you haven’t already “discovered” it – check it out – it will make you think.