It’s all the same…
The other night I was hanging out with a friend of mine. We were listening to music and I wanted to share this hip hop band called Themselves with him.
So I played one of their songs and we listened.
I asked him if he liked it and he said, “I like it.. It kind of sounds like what it would be like if Claypool did a rap band instead of Primus”
And so I corrected him and said, “Not rap - Hip Hop.”
And he said, “It’s all the same.”
It’s all the same.
I told him not to misunderstand it - Rap is not hip hop.
He then explained:
I hate that people put music into genres. It’s all music. It’s all the same.
.. . … . ..
“What’s this you’re writing?” asked Pooh, climbing onto the writing table.
“The Tao of Pooh,” I replied.
“The how of Pooh?” asked Pooh, smudging one of the words I had just written.
“The Tao of Pooh,” I relpied, poking his paw away with my pencil.
“It seems more like the ow! of Pooh,” said Pooh, rubbing his paw.
“Well, its not,” I replied huffily.
“What’s it about?” asked Pooh, leaning forward and smearing another word.
“It’s about how to stay happy and calm under all circumstances!” I yelled.
“Have you read it?” asked Pooh.
That was after some of us were discussing the Great Masters of Wisdom, and someone was saying how all of them came from the East, and I was saying that some of them didn’t, but he was going on and on, just like this sentence, not paying any attention, when I decided to read a quotation of Wisdom from the West, to prove that there was more to the world than one half, and I read:
“When you first wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
“It’s the same thing,” he said.
“What’s that?” the Unbeliever asked.
“Wisdom from a Western Taoist,” I said.
“It sounds like something from Winnie-the-Pooh,” he said.
“It is,” I said.
“That’s not about Taoism,” he said.
“Oh, yes it is,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” he said.
“What do you think it’s about?” I said.
“Its about this dumpy little bear that wanders around asking silly questions, making up songs, and going through all kinds of adventures, without ever accumulating any amount of intellectual knowledge or losing his simpleminded sort of happiness. That’s what it’s about,” he said.
“Same thing,” I said.
- ‘The Tao of Pooh’ - Hoff
