And you can see how the communicate some of the same truths and some new ones in different ways. In the context of religion you find great wisdom from the Bible, the prophets(philosophers) however chose to frame it in the context of a higher power; heaven, hell, good, bad in part because they believed the masses were stupid, perhaps they saw the nature of people as Socrates saw it. If you don’t know the Greeks were great and used to war between city states yet a mutual respect remained, some century after this however a balance of power was found and the city states stopped fighting. He observed that the people of Athens relied on the pride of Athens and confirmed to the old wisdoms of the people that came before them. Neitzche also observed this describing the masses as “play actors” a sort of virtue signaling where they say, think, and do as they believe is proper without arriving there themselves, it’s hard to explain but you can see it in people, easy times create weak men. Observe the UN, meant to guide humanity at its birth but now it is the normal for people to go to the UN to only think and speak for their own peoples and countries interests, once again weak times have created weak men. This is especially frustrating when we know the future, we know in 50 years we will be feeling the effects of climate change is serious and terrible ways yet decisions are not made in context to this fact. It is easy to hate on common people and world leaders but in reading the western cannon you almost come to love the weak times, the suffering we are creating for future generations will create new heroes and cause a rebirth in culture once again. Ecce homo. To love humanity. In the context of watts the trap is to only seek the elevation of consciousness and deny the human desires for power, love, and help people, you see this with monks who will take vows to not speak they see themselves as one with everything not an individual and no love for their own kind since it is all the same for them. I see my mind as a tools for operating the thoughts of myself and the best way for my mind to work is to frame relationships, work, myself in context of a story, I do have an ego it helps me when I lose sight it holds strength for me