As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simpleminded doesn't necessarily mean stupid. It's rather significant that the Taoist ideal is that of the still, calm, reflecting "mirror-mind" of the Uncarved Block, and it's rather significant that Pooh, rather than the thinkers Rabbit, Owl, or Eeyore, is the true hero of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.

"Lots of people talk to animals," said Pooh.
"Maybe, but..."
"Not very listen, though," he said.
"That's the problem," he added.

The thing that makes someone truly different - unique, in fact - is something that Claverness cannot really understand.

From caring comes courage. We might add that from it also comes wisdom. It's rather significant, we think, that those who have no compassion have no wisdom. Knowledge, yes; cleverness, maybe; wisdom, no. A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn't really care. Wisdom does.

It is wisely recognized that the courageous spirit of a single man can inspire to victory an army of thousands. If one concerned with ordinary gain can create such an effect, how much more will be produced by one who cares for greater things!

It starts when we are children, helpless but aware of things, enjoying what is around us. Then we reach adolescence, still helpless but trying to at least appear independent. When we outgrow that stage, we become adults - self-sufficient individuals able and mature enough to help others as we have learned to help ourselves.
But the adult is not the highest stage of development. The end of the cycle is that of the independent, clear-minded, all-seeing Child. That is the level known as wisdom. When the Tao Te Ching and other wise books say things like, "Return to the beginning; become a child again", that's what they're reffering to. Why do the enlightened seem filled with light and happiness, like children? Why do they sometimes even look and talk like children? Because they are Children Who Know. Their minds have been emptied of the countless minute somethings of small learning, and filled with the wisdom of the Great Nothing, the Way of the Universe.

And the pride you'll feel inside
Is not the kind that makes you fall-
It's the kind that recognizes
The bigness found in being Small.

As Oscar Wilde put it, "In the world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it."

By closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.

Maybe the "good" things are tests, possibly rather difficult ones at that, and the "bad" things are gifts to help us grow: problems to solve, situations to learn to avoid, habits to change, conditions to accept, lessons to learn, things to transform - all opportunities to find Wisdom, Happiness, and Truth.

"Know the masculine, but keep to the feminine... Return to the instant state." "Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who... think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure." "Great man retain child's mind." The great man, we would say, plays like a child and attracts like a woman. His play may be serious and his attraction seem masculine on its surface, but it is childlike and feminine nevertheless.