“What I like doing best is Nothing,” Christopher Robin tells Winnie-the-Pooh in A. A. Milne’s 1928 collection of stories, The House at Pooh Corner. The capitalization of “Nothing” is not a typo. Milne is introducing children (and re-introducing their parents) to a deep philosophical point through the voice of a fictional boy and his anthropomorphic stuffed bear.

“How do you do Nothing?” Pooh asks. Christopher Robin responds that being outdoors on a lovely day—as they are—sitting on a grassy knoll, enjoying one another’s company, with birds singing in the trees above, is: “a nothing sort of thing.” He further explains, ‘It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear…” Continue reading →