I Want YOU To Be Winnie the Pooh!
The one power we have that can topple evil dictators
Rule of Thumb.
Oh, good, the title worked. Now that I have your attention…
For anyone who knows me, a theater kid, they know I definitely watched the absolutely free and live June 7th, 2025 broadcast of that day’s Broadway performance of Good Night and Good Luck. Not just because I was absolutely giddy that a live performance was going to be televised for free, but also for the story being told.
The play is an adaptation of the 2005 film of the same name. Set during the 1950s, the tale chronicles the reports from the real life journalist Edward Murrow of CBS News against the junior senator Joseph McCarthy’s open and, for a time, unstoppable dismantling of United States law to destroy anyone he did not deem fit to live in the country. Murrow and his journalist crew do their research and writing work to publicly stand up to this conniving and moronic man by dishing out the straight and undeniable facts about what he was doing to the sacred republic and her people.
(Parallels to the past ten years are obvious, I would gladly buy Terry Moran of ABC News a drink, moving on.)
But one specific moment in the play, (other than the eloquent reference to William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar), resonated with me because the scene reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my dear, dear friends recently. He mentioned how too many people try to absolve wrongdoers by saying things like,
“All in all, they’re not that bad of a person. They mean well, at least.”
The problem is that the most destructive of us can “mean well” all we want, yet still be the hurtful villain in someone else’s story.
In the play, one character, fearful of where their public campaign against McCarthy’s majority wickedness is leading him and his wife, says, in a moment of doubt, maybe the junior senator is right to an extent. Maybe their fight against him will, in the future, be deemed wrong, because McCarthy, well, he is not really that bad of a guy; he means well, at least.
The slow poison we have been forced to gulp of the false narratives set by millennia of colonialist, oppressive ideologies, reinforced today by the new face of American patriotism, has screwed our perspective on what honor is, whether we realize so or not. Our standards of human decency have gotten confused with the hardness we need to stay alive, competing against a system hellbent on capitalistic greed.
To survive, we can easily become cold and cruel in this world, and have our own stories corrupted by the evil that is reigning supreme right now. Because how do you fight an enemy at their own game without becoming another pawn in their game? How do you fight a villain without becoming a villain?
I told my sister who watched the play with me something I have said before, and bears repeating.
“Here is a rule of thumb: if your leader would not get along with Winnie the Pooh, they are not good.”
Other alternatives for this vital life lesson include Mr. Fred Rogers; Steve from Blue’s Clues; Paddington Bear; or an OBA mainstay, Superman.
We all know Pooh Bear, either from the Disney animations, A.A. Milline’s original stories, or, heck, even these wonderful videos by cartoonist Doobus Goobus. Thus, this litmus test should be applicable for all of us:
Would Winnie the Pooh happily get along with you?
Rule of thumb.
“The Prince was Spoiled, Selfish, and Unkind.”
While some may disagree with me and argue that they mean well, I remain deeply disturbed to see millions upon millions of common people choosing to see the undeniably spoiled, selfish, and unkind humans who run the United States as champions of ideologies and causes they believe in. Chief among these crusades being the silencing, disgracing, and dismantling of anyone who is not a monetarily popular, White, and heterosexual male with a party-approved background.
As a someone who, in college, was once forced to listen to a fellow student’s impromptu treatise declaring how a college event promoting the idea that all peoples deserve a chance to be heard in this modern world objectively broken by centuries of slavery and imperialism was, in fact, destroying our culture; as someone whose dear friend said their cousin declared they wanted to buy a commercial flight ticket from the east coast to Los Angeles and help violently fight protesters this June; as someone who interacts, directly and indirectly, with fanatic supporters of these ideals every time I need to get groceries; I know firsthand that even this “greatest” country is full of, to be blunt, flat-out bullies.
We all went to school with these mean people. Some of you, like me, probably were tortured by them and watched others be abused by them. Well, now, folks just like them run the United States with orgasmic impunity and zealous supporters declaring their worship of these bullies. While we ordinary people have no real political power, this timeline we are bound came to pass in strong part because too many chose to be selfish and unkind, gloating their admiration and allegiance to those who, too, are selfish and unkind.
This was all that their real power to change the world could accomplish.
“There is a Magic Deeper Still…”
Here is the sad truth: concerning sweeping political change, you and I are not going to change anything. Ever.
Our raging against the dying of the light is a noble effort, but I suspect it will ultimately amount to us griping and accomplishing nothing because we have jobs to work so we can survive the game set to always let the powers that be end up on top. The sad fact is that the rich political bullies can afford to ignore and overlook unwealthy nobodies like us. For a variety of reasons that are not our faults, we are never going to change the political landscape of this world.
We are powerless.
However. By this same token:
There is one power we do have, always and forever, that can indeed change the world for the better.
I have said all these words not to discourage, but to point out to you where real power lies. For we always, always have one true, great power: to be selfless and kind.
Instead of filling our social media, our social interactions, and our work with greed and brutality, with hatred and persecution, poisoning our thoughts and hope, we have the power to tell a better story. We can be, well, the characters I said we could be. Winnie the Pooh. Mr. Fred Rogers. Steve. Paddington Bear. Superman.
Look around us and understand how this world has been made so, so much worse by the narcissistic and antagonistic tendencies that have been championed by a society run wild on this metaphorical sugar. These ideas and attitudes written into previous generations put us here, and continuing them keeps us where we are. Now, imagine how this world can be healed and made so, so much better by considerate and open-hearted practices within a culture running steadily on a metaphorical balanced diet.
No one can ever stop you from being selfless and kind.
As we fight to dismantle the false narratives that have wrought so much destruction on our world for so long, we must be watchful that the foundation for the better story we are trying to tell stays as pure as Winnie the Pooh.
“Humans Need Fantasy to be Human”.
On opening weekend, I saw Superman (2025), and, as I did as a young teenager, I believed a man could fly. That there really was someone like Clark Kent who was so kind and would save us from great and terrible threats like Lex Luthor. But the truth is that Superman is a fantasy. There is no good man who will fly and stop the Russian government from killing Ukrainians; no Kansas farmer in a red cape who will stop corrupt government administrations from hurting others, including you; no punk rocker with an S-shield on their chest who will save the abandoned, forgotten children.
But making such a hero real is not the purpose of this film. The purpose is to dream of the fantasy of Superman.
We cannot make change unless we can see a better world. Since we do not always see such heroic kindness from the Man of Tomorrow in our daily lives to convince us the impossible is possible, we need fiction, mere fantasies, to first place the ideas in our heads. Fiction lets folk like him be truly seen with our minds’ eyes. Superman (2025) is not here to make our problems go away. Superman (2025) is here to put these wondering thoughts inside us:
“What if there was such a hero in this world? In my community? What if I could be such a person? I cannot lift a falling building or prevent people from getting shot, but I can be selfless and kind to other people like Superman. Just little things, here and there, every day . . .”
But before people can turn these heroic ideas into muscle memory, they need to believe in things that do not exist easily in this universe. For, as Terry Pratchett once said in his Discworld novel, Hogfather,
“You have to start out learning to believe the little lies, to start believing in the big ones: Justice. Mercy. Duty.”
Truth comes from the lies that are stories.
We need fantasy to plant these seeds of good in our vicious minds. Which is why folks invented characters like Superman; Paddington Bear; Steve; Mr. Fred Rogers; Winnie the Pooh.
“The Fault, Dear Brutus, is Not in Our Stars, But in Ourselves.”
Be someone that spectacular Bear of Very Little Brain would get along with beautifully, because this act is the one power no one in the world can take away from us under any circumstances. Greater, never forget that we fell into this mess because of people who believed false narratives taught by societies that promote a toxic, cruel culture; though certainly not overnight, we can get out of this disaster by promoting the exact opposite world through our deeds and the fantasies we share with each other.
Tell a better story than the one given to us. Then, truth will be the foundation of everything you put down in ink.
Write your stories with people folks can call their “comfort characters.” Keep the fantasy of goodness alive in your stories and be glad you can be so decent yourself. Or, if your tales walk the wilder, darker sides of this world, be the fantasy of kindness on your social media pages and your interactions. Not as a responsibility, but as a sharing in and of a gift. You may not be able to stop someone like McCarthy, but when you see them in our world, you will know better than to say, “This guy is okay.” You will keep the spark that will defeat them — and endure them — alive.
Let the fault of a better world be upon the words you write, from the foundation of the person you are, and we will come to a better place.
Need guidance on how to tell this better story in your life? ‘TELL IT ANYWAY’ is an 8-week online group storytelling workshop that empowers you to be a part of this positive world change. Because if you want to build something that makes a real difference — a brand, a book, a business, a movement — your honest, human story is the key.
We only have 1 seat left for our pilot cohort starting in October. Join our waitlist for free to learn how to Tell It Anyway.
