The Fool
“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom:
He that thinks himself the happiest man is really so;
but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”
—Sir Francis Bacon, English Lawyer and Philosopher, 1561-1626
We are all fools of a sort. Life issues us days upon days to wander, learn, love and be productive. Sometimes we take advantage of what life offers. Sometimes we squander our good fortune.
Life is a journey that takes us through all kinds of adventures while meeting a series of individuals in situations that present themselves along the path. We enter each doorway on the path expectantly, like a Fool at the brink of a precipice surveying the horizon ahead. We don’t really know what lies ahead, nor do we really know from whence we came. It is our folly, our ideas which got us to this point in the first place. Naive. Ready to see what will become of the adventure before us. And we begin, again, another Fool’s Journey.
It is if life itself moves in a great circle. Ever expansive or ever contracting….the fool can choose. But, only one thing is clear: everything moves, everything changes. It is a law of nature.
The Fool represents the beginning of the journey into the unknown. When we begin a journey we are innocent and spontaneous. We have been given a fresh start for new potential from this important opportunity. What is it? A new job? starting college? A new romance? A new baby? Each time we start into the new adventure we have significant and unexpected circumstances assail us without any planning. We are pure excitement in this new phase of life. This new beginning can lead us anywhere.
We might feel confused, dazed from lack of clarity since we have no experience from which to proceed. Clinging to the ways of the past are a mistake because they are old and worn ideas and methods of relating and coping. It is time to move forward into a new direction because the Fool is ready to start a new life cycle. We lose control. We have to trust that we will be able to cope with our new circumstances as they arise.
The more that we are able to embrace the Fool into our daily life, the more that we are able to innovate, travel, envision, master, dream, and wander. The more we are able to trust in life itself, the more free movement becomes available to us. Life is secure when we embrace our Fool. We can trust life to take us to heights that we never imagined that we can go.