I’ve been feeling philosophical. As my mentor, Winnie-the-Pooh can attest, it’s an easy trap to trip into. Even a Bear of Very Little Brain can ponder.

All that’s required is a comfy chair or a railing to lean upon while the fluff between your ears floats freely about the woods.

Thinking must be avoided while flitting with philosophical thoughts. Logic lopes along behind thinking, and those two heffalumps and woozles ruin everything. It is best not to bother philosophical thoughts with thinking.

I met Winnie-the-Pooh back in 1965 or 1966. He lived in a forest under the name of Sanders — Sanders was the name written on the sign over his door. His author, who lived under the name of A.A. Milne, heavily influenced what would become my writing style, if not my philosophical ponderings.

Being a Burt of a Very Reflective Mood as we launch headlong into 2024 sans safety net, I wandered into the 100 Acre Wood to revisit Pooh and Milne. We sat on a hollow log with Piglet, Tigger and Roo, and my old friends reminded me of these gems of gentle wisdom that I once knew but had lost somewhere along the way of growing up.

• “I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.”

• “Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?” • “When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

• “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”

• “Rabbit’s clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit’s clever.”

“And he has Brain.”

“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.”

There was a long silence.

“I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that’s why he never understands anything.”

• “One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”

“I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit.

“No,” said Pooh humbly, “there isn’t. But there was going to be when I began it. It’s just that something happened to it along the way.”

• “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?'”

• “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.

• “I’m not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.”

“There’s the South Pole,” said Christopher Robin, “and I expect there’s an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don’t like talking about them.”

• “And how are you?” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

Eeyore shook his head from side to side.

“Not very how,” he said. “I don’t seem to have felt at all how for a long time.”

“They’re funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.”

“We didn’t know we were making memories, we were just having fun.”

Happy 2024!

• Join Burt, Pooh, Milne — and Tigger, too — at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.