The Theme Of Happiness In Benjamin Hoff's The Tao Of Pooh

Introduction:

In Benjamin Hoff’s the Tao of Pooh, he carefully explains through the story of Winnie the Pooh what it means to be a Taoist. The theme of the one’s own happiness appears multiple times throughout the book. Illustrated through Winnie the Pooh and his friends, but explained by Hoff, comes the Taoist idea that happiness can be reached by any person. The idea sounds simple and appealing, but Taoism claims that whether or not a person reaches happiness rests in one’s own power. Consequently, since one has power to reach happiness and bliss, one’s Self creates obstacles that can prevent the Self from accomplishing the goal of happiness such as knowledge and limitations.

Discussion of Topic:

In order to understand how knowledge

may prevent the Self from reaching happiness, one must understand what knowledge means. Knowledge can be considered as understanding and retaining information about a variety of topics. Hoff presents the Taoist idea that knowledge has different appearances. Specifically Hoff states that knowledge can be present as cleverness or in the intention of one’s positive appearance. “You might say that while Rabbit’s little routine is that of Knowledge for the sake of Being Clever, and while Owl’s is that of Knowledge for the sake of Appearing Wise” (15-16). Rabbit and Owl, characters in Winnie the Pooh, depict how life may be and how problems can arise when knowledge appears in these specific ways.
In the case of Rabbit, Hoff states about cleverness that “Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn’t look very deeply into things to begin with” (37). When cleverness appears as knowledge, the clever idea has a façade. However, within time and further investigation of the idea, one realizes that the idea cannot be viable due to its complexity. As a result, the problem in question will never be fixed, or it will take a long time to concoct a viable solution of how to resolve the problem. Therefore, one’s Self will never accomplish happiness and contentment, because of the constant battle of creating a seemingly clever idea instead of leaving the idea in its natural, simple state. Taoism refers to this natural state as the “Uncarved Block” (11). When one’s Self remains at the Uncarved Block (simpleminded) and does not focus on being clever, one can overpass this obstacle imposed by the self and reach happiness and contentment because one no longer attempts to force clever ideas. By choosing the Self to be in the Uncarved Block mentality, one agrees to let life flow, and not attempt to force life to happen. Thus, the Self obtains happiness.
Parallel to Rabbit’s situation can be seen in the character Owl. Similarly to Rabbit, Owl, according to Hoff appears to be wise, “Owl is that of Knowledge for the sake of Appearing Wise” (15-16). The significance of Owl’s sake for appearing wise arises from the feeling of being “pompous” (26) by keeping knowledge for one’s self. In Taoism, Owl represents scholars who use abstruse words in hope that lay people do not understand. Therefore, these ‘scholars’ have a façade as wise to the common person. When this occurs one can infer that scholars have hypocritical ways of life. For instance, Owl can be seen as a contradiction because he constantly attempts to organize perplexing concepts instead of trying to organize and understand his own life. In Taoism, happiness can only be reached, not through knowledge (learned wisdom), but through natural wisdom, “the wise are not learned; the learned are not wise” (24). Owl portrays himself as wise due to his vast knowledge on a variety of subjects. However, this obstacle blocks him from reaching happiness due to trying to understand abstract concepts. When one adopts the philosophy of the Uncarved Block, such as Pooh, one achieves wisdom which in turn coincides with achieving happiness due to being able to understand one’s Self.
Understanding one’s Self acts as a crucial point for one trying to reach happiness. Being able to understand one’s Self means that the person understands his strengths and limitations. Two limitations seen in the Tao of Pooh that prevent one from reaching happiness are static limitations and one’s own attitude.
Hoff uses the quote, “One disease, long life; no disease, short life” (48) to explain the Taoist belief that if one recognizes one’s own limitations, or shortcomings, then one can take care of them respectively, and turn them into one’s strengths in order to obtain happiness. For example, if a student knows that he does not do well on vocabulary for a particular class, then he can take action about it in order to turn this negative limitation into a positive strength. When one’s limitation becomes one’s own strength, the person abolishes the once static limitation of not being able to memorize vocabulary words, and now feels pleased with the newly converted strength. This example can be generalized to one’s own life. For instance, in life when one does not understand one’s limitations well enough, that person becomes static, unhappy, and can create more problems in life than what previously existed beforehand. Hoff illustrates this Taoist belief through Tigger. Since Tigger does not understand that he does have limitations, and cannot do every task that he may face in his life successfully, he causes himself unnecessary chaos. Tigger illustrates how he does not realize his own limitations by getting Piglet and himself stuck in a tree (44-47). If Tigger realizes his limitations, he would not get into as many predicaments because he would be letting his “Inner Nature” (50) flourish. If Tigger acts as his natural self then his limitations would be realized, and therefore allow him to obtain happiness due to not forcing himself to be good in every aspect of life.
Likewise to Tigger’s creation of unnecessary chaos, the limitation of one’s own negative attitude can result in unnecessary chaos which in turn acts as an obstacle for one to reach happiness in life. Hoff uses Eeyore’s negative attitude as an example. Eeyore always complains and has a negative outlook on life. This type of attitude limits people from reaching happiness because it serves as an obstacle that limits a person’s simplicity. For instance, Hoff states, “as anyone who doesn’t have it can see, the Eeyore Attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real Accomplishment in life” (16). The Taoist belief of the Uncarved Block explains why such an attitude prevents one from obtaining happiness. When having a negative outlook on life, one does not accept the natural state of the world, which in turns prevents the person from simplicity. This means that the person does not “look clearly and objectively at situations, they don’t recognize or believe in their own abilities, and they won’t stretch those abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk” (122). Therefore, one can understand why Eeyore acts resistant towards risk taking. If this attitude limitation did not exist in people then more people would obtain happiness. People would be more observant to what their eyes truly see, their own capabilities, and start to take risks.
Criticisms:
It turns out that even though Taoism has great ideologies that can help a person not let one’s Self become an obstacle for reaching happiness, but instead some Taoist ideologies can defer one from reaching happiness.

These ideologies consist of the problem with taking action and Wu Wei.

Today’s society pushes for people to excel and take action. If one does not do such things, the stigma of unsuccessful can be forced upon that person. Therefore, being a Bisy Backson does not necessarily have to be considered a negative trait. Hoff uses the phrase “Tao does not do, but nothing is not done” (70). This means that Taoists believe that by doing nothing, tasks or other events occur spontaneously, also known as the P’u Way. The issue that arises from this comes from today’s society. In today’s world sitting still and letting nature take its course, like Taoism suggests one to do, does not work. Society views traits such as being driven as positive, because that person will be considered to have a higher likelihood to be successful in life. However, a Taoist would consider this person to be a “Bisy Backson” (97). Hoff describes a Bisy Backson to be “always seems to have to be going somewhere or doing something” (96). Applying this Taoist belief to today’s society means that a majority of living people would be considered a Bisy Backson. According to Taoism, being a Bisy Backson will eventually result in “making him dead” (94). If this belief held true then majority

of the population of the world would be dead.
Another criticism that arises comes from the idea of Wu Wei.

Taoism suggests that one should follow Wu Wei which “literally means without doing, causing, or making” (68). If one follows this way of life then one chooses to release his “Inner Nature” and “operate on the principle of minimal effort” (69). This idea cannot be applied to real life. If one does go through life exercising minimal effort, one will only get minimal results. In return, one will never accomplish anything in life. This means that the world would not have doctors, businesses, and even food. One cannot sit down outside and wait for food to cultivate. That would take too long. One could become nomadic and live like gathers, but living like gathers does not work in today’s modern era. Another instance can be seen is some students. If a high school student puts minimal effort into his work for all four years, he will barely be accepted my colleges, or not be accepted anywhere. As a result, he will either not go to college, or not do well in college. Thus creates the situation of not having a satisfying career after college, if he graduates with putting minimal effort into his education. Hoff states that limitations “prevents any sort of real Accomplishment in life” (16). One can deduct from this statement that Taoists believe in accomplishing goals in life. In order to accomplish goals, one must take action. One cannot sit and wait for his goal to be completed by spontaneity. Life does not

work that way. However, life does have a natural way of having spontaneous events and opportunities occur, but the outcome of those occurrences depends on the person. If the person wants a positive result then one must take action. The action can even be not taking action. No matter if the person decides to take action or not, the person performs some type of action for the outcome of said goal. Therefore, the Taoist belief of Wu Wei and going with the flow of life cannot be taken heavily. It can however be incorporated to someone’s normal daily activities. For example, one should continue to make goals, take action to accomplish those goals, and then keep in mind that sometimes one needs to take a break and relax. If Taoism states, that one should balance one’s life between being a Bisy Backson and Wu Wei happiness would be obtained by all who live the balanced mentality.
Conclusion:
People everywhere no matter the race, age, gender, or religious background search for and desire happiness. The search and the desire to obtain happiness is part of human nature. Each individual has the power to obtain happiness, but not every person grasps it. Obstacles such as the different appearances of knowledge and one’s own limitations can prevent one from ever grasping happiness in one’s lifetime. Even though such obstacles exist within one’s Self, one must understand that these obstacles can be defeated through understanding one’s Self. Along with understanding one’s Self, one must remember to not take any ideologies literally. If people consider ideologies in a literal context, then people only the extreme sides of those ideologies. Consequently, that creates people to become off balance. When a person becomes off balanced (in the sense of living in extreme Taoism or another way of life), one becomes unhappy. In order to fully obtain happiness, one must learn about different ways of life, consider one’s own experiences, fully understand one’s Self, and live in balance.