For week 13, fresh off the zen bandwagon, I found a copy of The Te Of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff. If you recall, I enjoyed The Tao Of Pooh earlier in the year, and struggled to find a copy in my local bookstore. Turns out, I was looking in the wrong section, thinking that it would be in the Philosophy section, or the Eastern Philosophy section, or even Self-Help. Silly me; Barnes & Noble had a copy the entire time, located squarely in Humor. What was I thinking?
Anyway. I loved The Tao Of Pooh, but this one is even easier for me to relate to, being a Piglet myself. This is about a different aspect of Taoism: the Small, the child, the feminine, the not-strong. These are things my culture has for a very long time disparaged, dismissed, or simply forgotten about. Although there are several children’s books about how it isn’t bad to be small, the societal focus right now is about accepting differences – which is good, but not quite the same – instead of celebrating not just the values of flexibility, of smallness, of a childlike disposition, but the virtues.
This book gives a bit more historical and social commentary than the previous one, in the same simplistic, amusing, conversational (although it does venture into lecturing just a smidgen at times) style as before. It’s a wonderful companion to its predecessor and a quick read; a very nice change from the noisy escapism I usually ascribe to. Two thumbs up.
