Fools, Foolishness and Feeling Foolish

The person who takes himself with total seriousness becomes a true fool, a natural or unconscious fool, as distinguished from an artful or conscious fool. The artful fool is a mirror who shows the fool a true face, the basic quality of shame. Suffering can be negated with humour. Within much of psychology, there is a tendency to label humour as regression and resistance; whereas many strong leaders use humor, jokes, and creative imagination – a disorderly fertility – are the life-giving touch of the soul, challenging over-seriousness and righteous priestliness. The fool is connected to intuition; it is faith, trust, and purity of heart that pulls the individual through, not intellect, the collective, or even will. Shame is the emotion of feeling foolish; to experience limitation is to feel shame. Shame is the experience of ontological limitation. It is the fool speaking from the endless depths of imagination who brings out the ability to feel shame. Fools are agents of wholeness, and this includes celebrating the richness and celebration of accepting limitations.