The Tao of Pooh 🐻

It was my college sophomore year—I took a semester with really hard classes and found myself straight up in a not a good place. Doubted my every decisions, and doubts weren’t of the good kind, where you have the opportunity to reinforce your beliefs and become stronger—this was the debilitating kind of doubting.

The Tao of Pooh was one of those serendipitous moments in life—could not have predicted it. Saw someone joke about "the tower of poo" when they heard about this little book. It was funny, sure, but something told me—I have to know what it’s about—I feel as if it were a premonition—this has to become a part of my life.

Reading it every day, chapter by chapter, slowly, and re-reading it a bunch—before going to bed, near a fountain, thinking about it while walking around. It gave colors to what at the time, I saw as a mundane and gray day-to-day business of routine life.

When I walk and hear a bird singing on the tree—I don’t want to think about what kind of bird it is, how long its beak is, is it a good season for them or not—I just want to enjoy the song itself.

A modernist approach to the philosophy of Tao. I would call myself a Taoist as a consequence—got me deeper into more literature about it. Have to constantly remind myself of how to free up the mind to welcome the new and bright. I have a long way to go. ◼︎