Alan Watts

Clarity Comes by Letting Disturbance Settle

Watts’s insight also applies to decision-making. When options feel tangled, the temptation is to force a conclusion immediately, as if uncertainty were a flaw to eliminate. Yet hasty choices can be a form of stirring: they may satisfy the craving for certainty while muddying the consequences. By contrast, giving a problem room can restore proportion. As attention relaxes, details separate from one another, priorities become clearer, and what seemed equally urgent begins to sort itself. The quiet interval doesn’t solve the problem by magic; it reduces interference so the mind can see what was already there. [...]

Clarity Emerges When We Stop Forcing It

This naturally leads into meditation, not as a heroic battle against thoughts but as a decision to stop splashing. Many Buddhist practices describe the mind as a lake: when it’s agitated, it reflects nothing accurately; when it’s calm, it reflects reality more faithfully. Zen texts such as Dōgen’s writings in Shōbōgenzō (13th century) emphasize “just sitting,” where clarity is allowed rather than demanded. In practical terms, the instruction is modest: notice the impulse to fix the moment, and instead rest with it. The clearing is not forced; it arrives as a side effect of non-interference. [...]

Making Sense of Change by Entering It

Watts implies that meaning is not always discovered in advance like a map; sometimes it is created retrospectively as you proceed. When you commit to a direction—moving cities, ending a relationship, beginning a creative project—the reasons often clarify afterward through consequences, connections, and unexpected opportunities. This doesn’t romanticize impulsiveness; it highlights that life’s coherence is often visible only in motion. The story makes sense because you lived the next chapter, not because you perfectly predicted it. [...]

Clarity Arrives When We Stop Interfering

With that in mind, Watts’ advice becomes a technique: stop stirring. This might look like taking a walk without podcasts, sitting quietly for five minutes, or sleeping on a decision—ordinary acts that allow emotional sediment to settle. Anecdotally, people often report that a hard email becomes easier to write the next morning, not because new information arrived, but because the internal water cleared. Importantly, stillness here isn’t escapism; it’s a deliberate interruption of unhelpful mental motion. The pause creates space for subtler signals—values, intuition, and perspective—to reappear once the surface stops churning. [...]

Clarity Emerges When We Stop Forcing It

With that in mind, meditation can be read as the practical method behind the metaphor. In Zen traditions, sitting practice emphasizes observing thoughts without grabbing them, allowing mental turbulence to subside over time; Dōgen’s writings in Shōbōgenzō (13th century) describe zazen as a way of simply “sitting,” not chasing after mental content. The point isn’t to force blankness, but to stop adding friction. As attention steadies, what felt like an unsolvable knot often loosens on its own. You may still have the same emotions, yet they’re no longer whipped into froth by resistance. The “clear water” isn’t a new mind so much as a mind no longer being constantly disturbed. [...]

Clarity Arrives When We Stop Interfering

Carrying the metaphor into mental life, the “mud” often looks like rumination: replaying conversations, forecasting disasters, or repeatedly trying to solve a feeling as if it were a math problem. The more the mind stirs—adding commentary, judgment, and urgency—the more unsettled the inner water becomes. Psychology describes rumination as a loop that maintains distress rather than resolving it, and the quote captures that mechanism with striking economy. By stepping back, you interrupt the cycle of mental agitation; then what seemed inseparable—facts, emotions, assumptions—can settle into layers, making it easier to see what is actually there. [...]

Making Sense of Change by Entering It

Finally, plunging is not the same as abandoning judgment; it can be done with intention. You can enter change in increments—set a short horizon, define what “enough information” looks like, and build support systems—while still committing to participation rather than paralysis. The point is to trade the fantasy of total control for the discipline of iterative engagement. In the end, Watts suggests that change becomes sensible when it becomes familiar, and familiarity comes from contact. By stepping in, you stop treating life like a riddle and start treating it like a practice. [...]