Alan Watts My favorite writer is Alan Watts. He was from England and used to explore the relationship between Eastern and Western philosophies. Here's an excerpt from his book The Meaning of Happiness written when he was 24. "It is as if we ourselves were the hole in the handkerchief; we see some other part of the handkerchief and think how pleasant it would be to fill our emptiness by acquiring it. So we cut it out and fill ourselves, only to find that we are now the new hole--the invisible blind-spot in the universe." another: "In other words, unless you accept all that the loneliness and isolation of self-consciousness involves every attempt to get away from it will be futile."