I am always amazed how serendipity works in my life. I want to work and live overseas--I get a phone call asking me if I want to work in Japan. Things aren't working out in Slovakia, I call Japan to ask for the want ads only to find my former employers on their way to unexpectedly place one. I am able to attend an interview because I have the day off because I unexpectedly change jobs as I result I end up in LA.
On the Friday that all this nonsense began, a customer came into the library looking for some books on Taoism. I put him in the right section and then I also suggest that he might be interested in The Tao of Pooh and/or the The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff. He asked me if I had read them, and I had to admit that although they were both sitting on my bookshelf to eventually get to that I hadn't. But that I understood that they were quite good. That evening, I decided that if I recommend a book, I really should read it myself. So I got them off my shelf and started through them.
The are quite good and thought provoking. The are also heavily relevant to my current situation and has helped me put it in prospective. One of my favorite stories is in the Te of Piglet to paraphrase here it goes: a farmer has only one horse, the horse runs away; the neighbor comes over and says "How unlucky you are" and the farmer responds "How do you know?" The next day the horse comes back and brings 3 wild horses with it. the neighbor comes over and says "How lucky you are" and the farmer responds "How do you know?" The next day the farmer son breaks his arm trying to ride one of the wild horses. the neighbor comes over and says "How unlucky you are" and the farmer responds "How do you know?" The next day the emperors troops come by to conscript all able-bodied young men--his son is not able to go.
In English we often talk about Blessings in Disguise and Strange Twists of Fate. So it is best not to consider yourself lucky or unlucky we are not sure how the universe has decided that things will unfold. But the book further explains that positive energy will attract the positive and negative energy the negative. It is best to be thankful for what we have period and to strive to be true to our own natures.
The books are fun and easy to get through. The Te of Piglet is actually meatier as far as Taoism is concerned. The only thing that I question in the book is how Hoff tells the West to look at China, Japan and Korea as examples of environmentalism. This when China is a seething cesspool of pollution and government programs are trying to re-engineer nature. Japan until recently allowed home furnaces to burn trash. My balcony in Hiroshima was covered in soot that I had to clean every every week. Although there are fine examples that I am sure each countries have, they are not models by any means.
