It was somewhere around when I was 18-19 years old when Winnie the Pooh became one of my absolute favorite masters, it started off when I was 14 when I read the book "The Tao of Pooh" which opened my eyes to another way of living by, an actual religion, the Taoism. I remember how quickly I felt at home, like I have already known this, and the book was some kind of a reminder. Ever since then it became my way, and two years later, when I almost came to the point of killing myself and decided against it, coming to the conclusion that maybe nobody knows there is a different way to live by, I took the Taoism and its idea as one of my main guides, source of information and mostly, something to lean on when I became exhausted along the way, something which happened quite a bit.
I am fortunate, I just have to say it out loud, it always seemed as if something is watching over me, helping me with the choices I had made, making sure I am safe and sound. It was also when I was 14 years when I met one of my absolute best friends ever, it was that same friend who held me above water for those two weeks when I was 16, not knowing what he was actually doing until recently. It was this friend who became quite quickly one of my guides in life, and not long after we met, about a year or so, I started calling him Pooh. I can't recall why, I think it had something to do with him being a bit chubby back then, yet when I got to know him deeper with the years, I found out the name I gave him was a perfect fit, he was simply the human Pooh (I was Tiger).
After I joined the army, where I was again lucky, having to do only week there-week home, we decided to go on a journey into the wild, well, at least in our standers :-) We took two big backpacks, filled them with food cans, sleeping bags and some clothes and went off into the hills next to my Kibbutz in the middle of the night. Yes, we actually started the journey somewhere after midnight, god knows why. It was a beautiful journey and it consisted basically with waking up slowly in the morning, making fire for the morning coffee and breakfast, then going back to laying down for a while, digesting the food (We kept saying "Life's hard" :-)) Then, in the late morning hours, we started moving, never really knowing where to, having an idea at best. We would walk or hitchhike into the unknown, arriving to where ever the world took us, and doing it all over again the next day. The journey lasted 4 days and it took us toward the Mediterranean sea, where we spent couple of nights, one night at one of the north beaches (Betzet Beach) and then another on the road which was just under the border road between Israel and Lebanon.
I remember the ride back home, which we actually took with a bus, thinking to myself how simple the trip was and how amazing it is to connect to the flow of life, having such a beautiful easy going rhythm to it, how simple life can actually be. I knew it would take some time to fit it into my daily life, yet the will to make it a way to live by, at least for me, grew stronger in me, and I felt its roots grow deeper into my soul and core.
Ever since then I started practicing the saying "Never underestimate the value of doing nothing" (I found out lately that it actually starts with a "Don't", yet I grew to take away words which direct me to "Do" or "Don't", for who knows what will be the right thing for me to do. It also became my way of saying it, so... it doesn't really matter) I found out that in some points in life there is just nothing for me to do, and although it is always quite the tricky part for me, for I love doing things and knowing what to do, I remind myself to breathe, and wen it gets really hard, I remind myself that doing nothing is also a great did.
Love to you all,
Uriel
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