Pooh Was Not Confused

As a child in the 1980s, it was common to encounter the way life really works through myth and story. In my case, I was drawn to nostalgia before I even had the language for it. There was a groundedness in those stories that stayed with me, whether I understood it at the time or not. Winnie the Pooh, Babar, The Wind in the Willows, Charlie Brown. They offered a way of seeing the world that felt steady, human, and true.

Each year around my birthday, which falls at the end of November just before the holidays, I find myself reflecting on the speed of life. Questions like, ‘What have I learned?’, ‘What do I miss?’ and ‘Who do I miss?’ are common occurrences. This year, the launch of The Meaning Studio had me asking, ‘What actually matters in a world that feels so shallow and loud'?’. Advent has a way of really enhancing those questions, especially the last one.

In the midst of my contemplation, I have found myself returning again and again to the essence of things. To the why beneath the noise. With so much uncertainty surrounding us, economic, technological, cultural, I sometimes wish I knew less, heard less, and frankly, thought less.

I miss seeing the world with childlike hope while those around me operate with childish agendas.

That longing for steadiness, in life and in work, brings me back to Winnie the Pooh. There are moments throughout that story when Pooh pauses mid thought to consider something small. Often it is hunger and sometimes it is friendship. Needless to say, he is rarely in a hurry, and he is almost never trying to impress anyone, including himself. He doesn’t seem preoccupied with how little time he has. He simply inhabits it.

When I was younger, I misunderstood Pooh’s rhythm as being simple and boring. Now it is clear that Pooh is not simple in the way we usually mean it and in some ways that boredom is virtuous. He is attentive and present, understanding what matters because he stays with things long enough to feel their weight.

That posture feels on the verge of shocking when contrasted with today’s obsession with efficiency. I recently read that studios are now designing stories, shows, and systems assuming the audience will be half present, staring at a phone while something else plays in the background. My mind is blown.

Pooh, by contrast to a world of multi-tasking, sees both the forest and the trees. And though he appears simple, he understands something essential that others miss.

The others in this story are not Piglet or Eeyore or Tigger though I’m sure they miss the depth of what Pooh sees. I’m referring to Owl.

Owl holds a position of authority in his world and is admired for knowing many things. He has retained a remarkable amount of information and explains it fluently. He speaks with confidence, an expansive vocabulary, and a certain sense of importance. He is rarely silent, and yet, the deeper meaning of the moment almost always passes him by.

The difference between Pooh and Owl is not intelligence, it is awareness. One is attentive to what is happening to him. The other is focused on what is happening around him.

Put another way, both live in the same place, but only one lives inside of it. Pooh inhabits the world in which he resides while Owl merely describes it.

This distinction reminds me of a scene from the movie Good Will Hunting. Will, intelligent and articulate with an IQ that would make Einstein blush, explains love, loss, war, art, and suffering with unbelievable accuracy. In the midst of his explanation he freely references books, poets, and history with ease. Like an attorney who has prepped for trial, his analysis and evidence is not wrong.

But Sean, his therapist, responds calmly and decisively to Will’s unlived lesson. He does not accuse Will of ignorance, but instead points out his distance from the reality of what it’s like to live each of those experiences. Will only knows about love because he has read about it, not because he has chosen it with his own free will. He has not been a human long enough to be changed by illness, boredom, forgiveness, or grief.

Like Owl, Will has knowledge, but he lacks roots and the proverbial rings around his trunk to relate to real situations.

This distinction feels increasingly relevant today. We live in an age of explanation and access in which virtually everything can be named, summarized, categorized, and recalled. There is no shortage of answers, but the vacancy sign above good questions is clearly lit.

What has become increasingly scarce in our modern times is discernment. Not simply knowing what something is, but knowing whether it actually matters in the grand scheme of things.

Pooh would never confuse the two. When he pauses, it is not because he lacks information, but because he is listening for something quieter. He understands that meaning is not extracted by brute force but instead is received through patience. That is why he is often found sitting, walking, or waiting. He trusts that understanding arrives in its own time, and his role is to be attentive enough to recognize it.

Owl, however, does not wait. He fills the quiet space with noise and busyness.

This is not a moral failure on the part of Owl. It is a habit that has led to the confusion of means and ends. Owl believes knowledge itself is the goal while Pooh understands, instinctively, that knowledge only matters if it serves relationship and calling.

In the Hundred Acre Wood, the world is not shaped by Owl’s explanations, it is shaped by Pooh’s presence.

That is an idea worth sitting with. Furthermore, what is shaping our world and are we okay with it?

There is a subtle temptation today to equate clarity with completeness. We have been led to believe that if something can be articulated confidently or generated quickly, it must have been understood in the first place. But this is not objectively true. In other words, accuracy is not a synonymn for wisdom, and efficiency does not equal presence.

Pooh never confuses these things. He does not rush to finish a thought, is not intimidated by boredom and he is not turned off by repetition. He refuses to chase trends because trends, by definition, are not timeless. He returns to the same small truths again and again, because that is where life is fully lived.

This kind of knowing what matters cannot and will never be automated. It is learned through the human experiences of time, limits, affection, loss, and consequence. It belongs to those who live within their circumstances rather than narrating them from a distance. In the Hundred Acre Wood, as was noted before, Pooh lives with consequences while Owl mostly narrates them.

Children’s stories like Winnie-the-Pooh endure because they refuse to confuse explanation with understanding. Winnie-the-Pooh does not aim to inform or persuade. It merely aims to form and then it teaches us how to “be” before it teaches us “what” to know.

In this modern world of neon lights vying for our attention, it is easy to forget that the deepest truths, gifts, and blessings are rarely showy. They arrive quietly, asking us to slow down, watch and listen. They invite us to notice and be content when something has already been enough.

Perhaps the real work of our time is not creating fresh ways to learn faster or explain better, but by remembering how to remain present long enough for meaning to take shape and reveal itself. Some worlds, whether the Hundred Acre Wood or the planet Earth, are not meant to be mastered or narrated. They are meant to be lived in, with wisdom revealing itself to those willing to sit still and pay attention to its voice.