“If our sanity is to be strong and flexible, there must be occasional periods for the expression of completely spontaneous movement – for dancing, singing, howling, babbling, jumping, groaning, wailing – in short, for following any motion to which the organism as a whole seems to be inclined. It is by no means impossible to set up physical and moral boundaries within which this freedom of action is expressible – sensible contexts in which nonsense may have its way. Those who provide for this essential irrationality will never become stuffy or dull, and, what is far more important, they will be opening up the channels through which the formative and intelligent spontaneity of the organism can at last flow into consciousness. This is why free association is such a valuable technique in psychotherapy; its limitation is that it is purely verbal. The function of such intervals for nonsense is not merely to be an outlet for pent-up emotion or unused psychic energy, but to set in motion a mode of spontaneous action which, though at first appearing as nonsense, can eventually express itself in intelligible forms.” -Alan Watts, The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:50:27 +0000
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