Be the Fool: A More Enjoyable Way to Live Life
What if you just let yourself make silly mistakes?
I’m currently actively exploring a direction for my reflections here on Substack. Last week I wrote about how often I feel like a fool recently as I do things I’ve never done before. How difficult that is (for my ego) but also how good it is for me. I think this a rich vein of symbolism to explore, and a theme I seem to keep coming back to especially whenever I feel like I’m on the struggle bus.
I am the fool. This may seem like a self-judgment when you first read it, largely because the word ‘fool’ has such a negative connotation. Nobody wants to be a fool, someone who appears stupid, clueless, uncultured, unaware, lost.
I however use the word to do the opposite of self-judgment, to combat my own self-judgments, which is something that I do a lot of, by the way and it never leads anywhere good.
Digging more deeply into the fool archetype, I discovered that there are different variations on its meaning, that it isn’t all just about being the comedic butt of the joke or an amoral court jester. It is a frequently misunderstood archetype that gives me a sense of levity in the face of challenges.
Stripped from the negative connotations, the fool often represents a blank slate, something or someone that we project ourselves onto. If we see him as stupid, perhaps this is because we see ourselves as stupid (self-judgment), or fear that we may be perceived as stupid (judgments from others).
We have such a habit of hurling barbed words at ourselves and others that it’s easy to forget what they even meant in the first place.
But even the etymology of ‘stupid’ is fascinating:
From Middle French stupide, from Latin stupidus (“struck senseless, amazed”), from stupeō (“be amazed or confounded, be struck senseless”)
Perhaps I am missing something but that doesn’t really sound necessarily that bad. Of course, it depends a lot on context but to be honest with you, I very much enjoy feelings of amazement and wonder in the face of all of life’s mystery. If anything, dropping any sense at all that I’m supposed to know what is going on feels like a relief. I do feel like my attempts to rationalize and make sense of things are often met with dissatisfaction, like I am trying to squeeze life’s beautifully incomprehensible workings into a little box. Put more simply, I feel like I lose sight of the bigger picture.
The bigger picture being that life is a really intense adventure full of highs and lows and it’s absurd and arrogant to ever think you know what’s really going on.
Maybe incarnating the fool feels like a relief because he represents beginner’s mind, a Zen Buddhist concept that refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying or learning, even at an advanced level, just as a beginner would.
For some reason, I come back to this idea when I feel overwhelmed or feel a heightened degree of self-judgment because there’s something just so liberating about the idea of a blank slate, the simplicity of the symbolism of a fool embarking on a journey without developed notions of who he or she or they are and what lies ahead.
***
The fool (pictured above) is depicted in a tarot card deck as standing at the edge of a cliff, because only a fool would do that. Without preconceived notions of danger and what should and shouldn’t be done, the fool has the freedom to do things others wouldn’t even dream to do. To go places others wouldn’t think to. Fool in French is ‘fou’ which means “crazy” as in “the crazy one.”
And the symbolism of the cliff is just perfect to me. A metaphorical cliff of course, of the scary thing that must be done on the journey into the unknown.
Let the cliff be metaphorical – think about the implications of this line of thinking. The real obstacles to overcome in life aren’t the things that you’re trying to do. It isn’t the dissertation you’re trying to write, the job interview you gotta ace, the audition you have scheduled for tomorrow, the short film you gotta submit, the conversation you need to have with your in-laws, the gym session for later this morning. It is the self-judgment, the negative self talk, the self denigration.
The fool is seen as stupid because he isn’t thinking. There are times when this is dangerous but there are also times when this is liberating. So often I find thinking to be a gigantic waste of time. I do too much thinking. I could do with being a little more like the fool, thinking less and not buying into all of that unhealthy internal noise. When you think less, there’s more room to be open and receptive to life.
Last week I wrote about the mode I seem to have to enter to accomplish anything, because no matter what you try to do, there will always be obstacles, and the only way beyond those obstacles is a willingness to face them. It sounds so simple but often just the mere presence of obstacles is enough to deter us from even trying.
A willingness to look stupid and be a fool is so often the thing I need to take the leap.
I wrote this post listening to this.
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One of the tougher realizations I think to come to — especially for those like myself who take pride even in the ability to think logically and generate all these roads of thought to critically evaluate a thing — is that the returns to thinking are not actually just a positive sloping line off into infinity. You reach a point, and you can reach it quickly, where the insistence that you "figure the thing out" in your head before acting immobilizes you completely.
The fool, almost paradoxically, is more effective and likely quicker to learn than the one insistent on knowing something to begin. Thank you for that important reminder and, as always, for sharing your thoughts.
*Although I haven't read it, I've heard Dostoyevsky's 'The Idiot' is a worthwhile exploration into this idea.
You said it perfectly! Here's to embracing our inner fools! 🤪