I enjoyed the Tao of Pooh, I loved how Hoff used childhood characters to exemplify the nature of the religion to make it relatable and understandable to people of all ages. After reading it and my knowledge of Taoism from class I think I really like Taoism and I think a lot of people could benefit from learning about it and possibly taking it up as a philosophical belief (or even their full-time religion). Taoism really opened my eyes to the level of non-Taoist actions and activities that much of American society takes part in. Hoff’s book helped me to fully understand concepts such as wu wei, I also finally understand the Uncarved Block (p’u). This book made me look more closely at my own life and my life choices and I feel like if I embraced these Taoist concepts my life would be so much less stressful.
This leads into the topic of the Bisy Backson and how it represents American culture as whole. Our society is obsessed with taking matters into our own hands to better our situation, and that is not always a bad thing, but it is the exact opposite of the way of the Tao (or rather wu wei). The Bisy Backson is so busy trying to “save time” that he eventually ends up wasting all of it. I’ve noticed about our culture that everyone is always rushing to do one thing or another, and in the end the cause of the rush is usually not worth it. For example, I’ve noticed a lot of people my age or younger have been trying to rush their growing up process far too quickly, and from my experience it always ends up negatively, or the experience backfires on them. If we all could embrace the concept of unmeddlesome action and let life take its course as it is supposed to we could not only come out on the other side having enjoyed life thoroughly, we can breeze through the process without a care or worry, letting life lead us instead of the other way around.
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