What would you call someone with no pursuit of knowledge? An ignorant person, or a person oblivious to the world? As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid. It’s rather significant that the Taoist ideal is that of the still, calm, reflecting, “mirror-mind” of the Uncarved Block. An “Uncarved Block” is the ability to enjoy the simplicity of life and not to have to worry about the pursuit of Knowledge or why the world exists. The Uncarved Block allows people to free their minds from the worries of the common person. Instead of questioning things, they just accept and embrace them as they are and learn to deal with them, or in other circumstances enjoy them and love them. From the stage of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times. As mentioned several times in The Tao of Pooh, Piglet simply states that since Pooh is an example of an Uncarved Block, he is always happy yet simplistic, and not pursuing new Knowledge. “Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right,” states Piglet. When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.
The pursuit of Knowledge can also be harmful to ones-self. There is so much knowledge in this world that your Brain sometimes doesn’t know what to retain and what to discard, therefore leaving you with mixed messages of what you should know and shouldn’t. For example; because my friend realizes and knows through the pursuit of Knowledge that airplanes are able to crash, she is paranoid to fly in a plane. Where on the contrary if she didn’t have the pursuit of Knowledge, she wouldn’t feel intimidated and frightened. Because of the pursuit of Knowledge, many people now are more paranoid than usual about nearly everything.
In retrospect, the pursuit of Knowledge is not worthwhile because it leads to corruption and useless information being processed. Although sometimes the pursuit of Knowledge can be beneficial regarding certain aspects of life, such as new discoveries in the field of Medicine and whatnot, it is more troublesome than anything. As the age-old saying goes, ignorance is bliss.