2.27.01

Sorry I haven't written in the past few days. Went to the Mardi Gras celebration in St. Louis, got rained on and walked 5 miles soaking wet. Yeah, I've seen better days, but then again, I've also seen worse. But, I'm back now and best of all, I have some Tao stuff to talk about.

Last night after work, I ran to the mall and picked up two books that I've been reading a lot about as good introductions to Taoism. Now don't laugh here because these are very well respected books. The first, "The Tao of Pooh" explains some basic concepts of the Tao through the world of Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods. The second, "The Te of Piglet" (pronounced "DEH") goes even more in-depth into the teachings. The Pooh book is pretty short - about 125 pages or so - and I read it all the way through last night, so let me tell you a little about what I've learned.

I think Bobby McFarren (sp?) said it best with his '80's hit "Don't worry. Be happy." Yeah, we're all sick of the song, but the message is good. That is essentially the main idea behind Taoism, or at least that's my understanding thus far. Of course there's more to it, but that's the basic idea.

One of the first things the author discusses in the TOP (Tao of Pooh) is the idea of knowing yourself first. To be able to do anything in life, you need to first know what you can and cannot do. It's ok to not be able to do everything, but you need to understand that. Once you understand what you can do, the Tao tells you to do nothing. Basically, just let life happen and the natural order of things will take care of everything. How can you not like this philosophy?

This "do nothing" mentality, though, does not necessarily mean that you shouldn't help your fellow man. There are those in the world who are too busy doing things that they sometimes dig themselves into a hole. Look at so many homeless cases we hear about on the news where a man was the CEO of a major corporation and now he's living in his car. If he had just let life happen, instead of chasing after the things of the material world, he would have never gotten into that position. Of course he wouldn't have briefly lived the high-life, either; but isn't it better to live happily forever than only for a while? If it makes you happy to help people, help them. If you could care less about others, that's fine too. It's your time on earth, so do whatever it is that makes you happy.

I love this concept. How many times has Christianity, in an attempt to "help", actually fucked up the world more? The Crusades were meant to liberate The Promised Land from the Muslims so Christian nobles could go on Pilgrimages. The Spanish Inquisition was supposed to help the community by weeding out those who were not Catholic. The Salem Witch Trials occurred so that communities could be free from satanic influences. These were the reasons Christianity gave to the public who were so scared of eternal damnation that they didn't dare question the church. However, as we all know, history has proven the Church had ulterior motives in every one of these cases. Imagine how many problems we could solve in this world if we could just get people to mind their own damn business.

Does this mean you can be an asshole? I guess it does, but you'd have to make a real effort to do so. If no one is telling you how to live your life or "helping" you; if you're not chasing after material items so you'll be a better person than your neighbor, what is there to be pissed off about?

So why doesn't it matter if you help people or go to church on Sunday or pray every night or take communion? A deer doesn't need to help another deer get a job. I've never seen a squirrel get dressed up to impress the other squirrels on Sunday morning. I've never seen a fish pray. And you'll never see a wolf take communion. These rituals are not the natural order of life. Living is the natural order of life and so is dying. When you die, you simply get re-introduced to the natural order. Your body decays and nourishes the ground, which makes the grass grow so a deer can eat. So whether you pray every night or not, you're still going to become deer food eventually. Again, with my scientific mind, I like this concept.

So that's what I've learned about Taoism. I'm really digging it, so far, and I must be because I don't say "digging" very often. I probably won't talk much about it anytime soon until I can learn more, so I hope you're ok with that. I figure I've given enough of a base that if you're interested you'll go do some research yourself. I'm going to put a link in the "links" section for you to a site that tells you more about Taoism, though, just so you have a jumping off point. If it doesn't interest you, that's fine, too. Whatever. I just hope I haven't bored you to death with my little venture into it.
Next time, I think I'm going to talk about some movies you should check out. Figure it's time to give this heavy stuff a little bit of a break anyway.

Your pal…or not, I don't care (hehe):

Space Monkey