Daily Wisdom-isms

Today’s Wisdom-ism comes from The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. In this excerpt Hoff compares Taoist wisdom and simplicity to Western academia. Enjoy!

“It seems rather odd somehow, that Taoism, the way of the Whole Man, the True Man, the Spirit Man (to use a few Taoist terms), is for the most part interpreted here in the West by the Scholarly Owl–by the Brain, the Academician, the dry-as-dust Absent Minded Professor. Far from reflecting the Taoist ideal of wholeness and independence, this incomplete and unbalanced creature divides all kinds of abstract things into little categories and compartments, while remaining rather helpless and disorganized in his daily life.

Rather than learn from Taoist teachers and from direct experience, he learns intellectually, and indirectly, from books. And since he doesn’t usually put Taoist principles into practice in an everyday sort of way, his explanations of them tend to leave out some rather important details, such as how they work and where you can apply them.

On top of that, it is very hard to find any of the spirit of Taoism in the lifeless writings of the humorless Academic Mortician, whose bleached-out scholarly dissertations contain no more of the character of Taoist wisdom than does the typical wax museum.”—The Tao of Pooh pp. 25 and 26