The Art of Tending to Oneself | Are.na Editorial

This is the quiet art of living well. It does not demand that we abandon the world, but that we engage with it more mindfully. It asks that we slow down, that we look more closely, that we listen more carefully. For in doing so, we discover that much of what we seek—clarity, peace, even strength—was always within reach. It was simply waiting for us

The art of living . . . is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past . . . on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive. —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety