An Essay on the Role of the Fool
So as I'm standing there, Brillo pad in hand, scouring out the sink I got to thinking about the role of the Fool through history, and why we value maturity. Yes, this is what I do when I clean.
So when we're younger, we all know the stereotypes: the class joker, the class idiot, the smartass. The guy who cracks all the jokes and pulls stunts on other people. Did you ever notice that these guys rarely get the chicks? Our culture no longer values the role of the Fool like we used to.....
In medieval times kings used to have a fool at their side. Their role was to keep an eye on the king's mood, and if he got crabby or angry, they would try to defuse the situation by various antics, including mocking the situation. It was a dicey job to have, because if you weren't good at defusing situations you tended to lose you job rather permanently. And again, most folks who would laugh at the fool wanted nothing more to do with him. You didn't socialize with the fool, and indeed most people treated him like a blithering idiot.
Which is odd, if you stop to consider that the fool's whole job was to sit next to the king nearly all the time. The fool was privy to more specialized knowledge than anyone besides the king! He knew things; you'd think people would be trying to curry his favor in order to pick his brain instead.
So the story goes. Most famous Fools through history have been reviled or ignored or shunned. There's Loki the Trickster from Norse legend; he loved to play pranks (some not so harmless, either) but very few folks ever wanted to hang with him. Most of the ones who did tended towards that kind of vengeful sense of humor that you find in thugs. There are lots of other examples; can you think of some?
Perhaps the least reviled Fool I can think of may be Coyote the Trickster, from Native American legend. Much of the time what seemed to be a simplistic way of thinking on Coyote's part was merely an alternate way of viewing the universe. It appeared to be simplistic because so few folks could grasp it. Coyote appears to prefer to be solitary, and purposefully obfuscates things so he can spend his time by himself.
So I still haven't gotten to the maturity part. That's likely to be another post.
So when we're younger, we all know the stereotypes: the class joker, the class idiot, the smartass. The guy who cracks all the jokes and pulls stunts on other people. Did you ever notice that these guys rarely get the chicks? Our culture no longer values the role of the Fool like we used to.....
In medieval times kings used to have a fool at their side. Their role was to keep an eye on the king's mood, and if he got crabby or angry, they would try to defuse the situation by various antics, including mocking the situation. It was a dicey job to have, because if you weren't good at defusing situations you tended to lose you job rather permanently. And again, most folks who would laugh at the fool wanted nothing more to do with him. You didn't socialize with the fool, and indeed most people treated him like a blithering idiot.
Which is odd, if you stop to consider that the fool's whole job was to sit next to the king nearly all the time. The fool was privy to more specialized knowledge than anyone besides the king! He knew things; you'd think people would be trying to curry his favor in order to pick his brain instead.
So the story goes. Most famous Fools through history have been reviled or ignored or shunned. There's Loki the Trickster from Norse legend; he loved to play pranks (some not so harmless, either) but very few folks ever wanted to hang with him. Most of the ones who did tended towards that kind of vengeful sense of humor that you find in thugs. There are lots of other examples; can you think of some?
Perhaps the least reviled Fool I can think of may be Coyote the Trickster, from Native American legend. Much of the time what seemed to be a simplistic way of thinking on Coyote's part was merely an alternate way of viewing the universe. It appeared to be simplistic because so few folks could grasp it. Coyote appears to prefer to be solitary, and purposefully obfuscates things so he can spend his time by himself.
So I still haven't gotten to the maturity part. That's likely to be another post.