The Tao of SpongeBob

It may seem surprising that I choose to use a cartoon character to illustrate an important Eastern Philosophical concept, but it is not the first time that it has been done. Benjamin Hoff and his book The Tao of Pooh used the creation of A.A. Milne to illustrate the concept of wu wei wu, which translates into English as doing without doing.

If you have a problem with the logic of it, do not worry. Trying to state the concept in words in English is a frustrating exercise and ultimately relies on the author trying to show you the example. I wish I could say this would be any different, but in the words of Lao Tzu himself “He who talks doesn’t know. He who knows doesn’t talk.” So you can safely read this article with the knowledge that I do not know the subject.

While Winnie the Pooh was a good example to use for the concept, I think there is a more popular and currently equally well-known character who works just as well. I refer of course to the yellow sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. It may seem strange to use a character that largely seems nonsensical to illustrate a serious concept, but while the cartoon may be intended to be entertainment, SpongeBob simply is.

Unlike his neighbor Squidward, who seems weighted down with the cares of the world, Spongebob never worries about how thing will turn out. Often the childlike faith of the title character and his best friends may be the object of ridicule, so much so that some people have said that the show makes fun of religious belief, but they simply miss the point. The faith, however misplaced, of the square panted dweller of Bikini Bottom always gets rewarded. The conch shell effort also shows us something else.

While Squidward may think himself wise, it turns out that those who listened to the undersea equivalent of the magic Eight ball do get rewarded, although we are left to wonder exactly how the castaways get rescued. Perhaps it will be the subject of several made for television films several years down the road.

Spongebob, except in a few episodes, always achieves things with what may be called effortless effort. Have you ever noticed that over planning never seems to help a situation? In fact, the episodes where Spongebob is the cause of the trouble it is precisely because he put too much effort or thought into the goal that he wanted to accomplish, such as the one episode where he becomes the Hall Monitor at his driving school.

Unsurprisingly, his foil in many of the episodes fails precisely because not only does he not on faith, he goes too far out of his way to prove his neighbors wrong. In one episode the clarinet playing octopus Squidward conducts an elaborate tale to frighten his co-worker all of which comes true. In the end things do turn out to have rational explanations, but had Squidward not put so much effort into it, things might not have gone wrong for him in the first place.

So, while the creators of the series may not have intended SpongeBob Squarepants to be anything other than simple piece of entertainment for children you can rest secure in the knowledge that you are in fact learning something from the show when you watch it with your kids or by yourself if you still watch cartoons.