TOW #24 – "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff (IRB)

As a continuation from where he last left off, Benjamin Hoff further teaches the basics of Taoism while simultaneous beginning to introduce new ideas. Still using Winnie-the-Pooh characters to represent different ways of living, Hoff can show a general audience why Wu Wei is probably the best way.

Bisy Backson becomes the next symbol of how we can go through our everyday lives. This way is more common and familiar, something Americans are known for promoting as ‘Hard Work’ due to Puritan ideals in the past, but when Hoff compares it to the Taoist way of living, our way seems so much more stressful and undesirable. The Backsons are always searching for a reward, something that would be success in our case, and they usually believe they just have to fight extra hard to overcome the obstacles hiding it from them. They think of progress, like we usually do, “in terms of fighting and overcoming” rather than yielding to the flow of consequences. They force events to work in their favor, but the actions of working, working, working, for a reward that is just “around the next corner, above the next step” and “down the road, on the other side of the world, past the moon, [and] beyond the stars” begins to wear you out. In comparison, Wu Wei allows things to happen as they may without expending so much energy, and things tend to simply work out in your favor when you follow your intuition with a sensitivity to the consequences rather than running circles in your own mind when you overthink every little decision.

Hoff also uses some humor, through small jokes, that may leave the reader smiling a little to themselves out of amusement. Hoff places himself in the story as a physically present narrator, almost as though he were a grandparent telling the reader a bed time story, and he interacts with the different characters between his examples. Usually, these interactions are just as informative as the analogies, but sometimes there are little comments thrown in, such as Pooh casually teasing him about a poor riddle, and it helps make the book even more enjoyable.