Thus I can (as though) travel on the clouds, relax in the rains, run as the rivers, vacation as waves at the seashore, watering the world, being reborn as every living thing.

So tip back a glass of pure cool tasteless water and remember me as the flow, not the show.

People are pre-divided by identity-desires that precede judging any scene seen.

There are those whose belief-behavior-boorishness shows they are karmic-ally devolving*
Others' karmas (actions) show the progress of humanity in individuals desiring inclusion and peace.

* A trajectory of desires, actions, results, and responses (more action) that continues resulting in unpleasant, unwanted circumstances from which there seems to be no escape.

Two lifestyle choices
Desire-action-results-unwanted-anger-lashing out-increasing frustration-delusion
Or
Desire-action-results-unwanted-acceptance-redirection-increasing success-delight

The problem of short sighted (and short-sited)* thinking is not new.
People act in desire of some results.

These results may be just what we expected (wanted, hoped); cross the road, catch the bus to work.
They may be even better; cross the road and a passing friend gives you a ride.
They certainly can be worse and unwanted; cross road, bus never comes, you get fired for lateness.
Or, they may be totally disconnected, unexpected and un-thought; you fall into a sinkhole and never get across the road.

The results of actions can be seen; they may also be unseen. Wants motivate our acts. Results are of two kinds; desired and undesired.
Thus we bounce and ricochet off the rails of "oops!" and "Did I do that?
Perhaps if humans successfully saw through all thoughts, we would all stop stupid** activities.

*Think selfishness, situated in personal desires
** Think useless

When the truth is out there, continued 'ignorance' equals 'ignoring' that which is there to be known.

The "why?" is that they are ignorant of the nature of their self and the human condition of being part and parcel of the whole, in-separately connected with the totality. Personal desires are mistaken as the summum bonum in warped worlds.

It is the false understanding of "self" that underlies the ability to ignore other selves as unworthy.
It is the false understanding of self that births selfishness and the motivational need to NEVER be wrong.
They know what they are doing but ignore the harm they do.

Too many exist in ignorance of dharma, right path, ethics, morality and kindergarten sharing.
Having been taught right from wrong, they continue ignoring the results of wrong actions while believing only they are deserving.

One who correctly understands "self' is capable of humility and change and thus is not attached to the tatters of worn-out beliefs. Such ones willingly redress the self in other than the 'emperor's new clothes.

The idea of casting the light of inquiry upon 'our childhood' is not wrong. It is very limited though because the same hypnotic socializing (identity building) continues throughout life. It is natural to believe that the life we live is the normal, and thus good for all.

A deeper understanding of the problem and appropriate responses can be had by substituting the idea (word) 'childhood' with 'self-identity'. Objectively self-identity changes over time. Subjectively, the self never sees discontinuity in identity. The baby, the child, the youth, the adult, the elder; the body, ideas, desires, experiences all change in time. Certainly we change our minds.
But we never know ourselves to be absent, to be not-existent. I am the constant consciousness existent in all times of my life; past, present, future (hopefully); awake, asleep, dreaming; happy, sad, indifferent.

Everyone has the a-priori experience of knowing "I am, I exist".
What or who I am is however poorly known. Or perhaps better understood as having been mixed-up with (covered over by) myth, untruth, limited truth, wrong ideas, more, worse.

As suggested in the video, our normal when growing up is rooted in the norms of parents, family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and eventually lovers.
When the teachers are poorly taught, when the teachers' agendas take precedence over the teaching and the taught, when the mores of the local culture lean towards sociopathy (to put it bluntly), the child is wrongly taught.

When the truth of what it means to be existent consciousness in the manifest world is not taught nonsense exists, and though it makes no sense, nastiness becomes the norm.

Ignorance is the first link in the chain, followed by Desire.

Together the two build a vast edifice of self-identity and the world around us.
Self-identity we all have, the wise build their identity on universal truth rather than the swamps of ignorance and shifting sands of desires.

At the deepest level of their self-awareness, too many people do not like themselves

They are uncomfortable being alone because they do not like, do not accept their self as they understand that self to be.
The inability to be alone with one's self is too common.
There a near constant need for diversions, entertainments, etc. to distract from one's own discomfort as an individual.

Frustration grows in beings who are never satisfied with 'what is' and are continuously chasing some brass ring on the merry-go-round of their not merry lives.
Frustration leads to lashing-out anger and that is an impediment to what one wants, which is to be connected.
This is not a problem that percolates in saints, sages, monks, yogis, hermits and rishis.

Now imagine if one self-identified, not as some limited body-mind-sense-complex-being who always needs external fulfillment, but rather as though a bubble of the totality. Imagine being identifitied with the inside-whole that remains when the bubble bursts. A soap bubble film seems to have an inside and an outside but the reality is that the inside is non-different from the outside. The seeming separation of bubble from world is a thin, temporary, translucent film (a flim-flam) that doesn't really divide space into two.

namaste

First, we need to recognize the we are tribal people. Pick a team; sports is the clearest example.
Religion, politics, interests, desires, tastes, style and fashion choices are some of the signs/ marks/ wardrobe within which we strut, flashing our colors, our choices, desires, beliefs and identity.

Individuals mix up their 'self' with all kinds of things that are not them.
So when someone else insults, say their state, they are personally offended.
The sight of a mask becomes a personal affront to the triggered tribal team individual who takes it as an attack upon their intelligence, politics, supremacy, or similar silly stuff mistaken as equal to 'self'.

We hear about " identity politics" but I submit that a better understanding can be had by understanding "mis-identity" politics.
Politics = ethics = morality = how we judge ourselves and those others, our worlds and others around.
Who is on my team, who is worthy, who is in fact 'human'; or conversely, who can I attack.

We must begin to teach our children well that they are individuals in society, not individuals surrounded by society.
We need to teach epistemology and logic; how do you know that you know and what is validity.
Conservatives and religion-ists often opine that morality and ethics and doing good requires God without which there is no measure of good.

I submit that ruth, justice, the American or any other successful way requires validity, a measure of fact without which there exists only the great-deceiver.

Alan Watts was a scoundrel, but he was also damn good at presenting the deepest spiritual truths in reasonably simple manner.

There is no reason why his "The Book" should not be part of the scriptures for a New New Testament.
The old old-new testament tradition really testifies to God's willingness to fess-up to failure and re-issue the teaching (owner's manual for the self).
This old old-old scriptural teaching was first presented in Sanskrit and has been revealed to the wise of every time, place and culture. It has also been bastardized, misunderstood, mistranslated and missed the point.

Watts' "The Book" presents a plan to teach the children well so they know they are never 'not' and always are, through and through, filled with the well-spring of inner peace. May all the inner children grow-up joyous and fully connected with 'what it is'.

Living objectively is vaccine against poisonous subjectivity.

Life is not easy, we say. That is the way it is, we say.
But what if life can be easy. What if life can be easy when we are not dis-eased?

One word describes and explains why life is not easy: DESIRE

Desire births action for the purpose of fulfilling the desire.
The cosmos frequently tosses in a slip 'twixt cup and lip and we get get less than or not at all what we wanted.
Thus unfulfilled desire births frustration from which arises anger.
Angers' broods are rage, delusion and failure. There are many angers.

Difficulties arise as we grasp for, defend, and lose our objects of desire; we even lose interest in our previously precious acquisitions (garage sale anyone!?).

I have come to believe that the downfall of humanity was the invention of the woven grass basket/bag.
Desire is the original disease.