April
2, 2018
Greetings from
the foolish,
My friends
will already know I generally don’t engage in April Fool’s day in any way. I don’t do pranks on others, in part because
I don’t want any part of meanness; life provides enough ways to look foolish
without adding my inspiration. And more important
I don’t want to invite anyone to trick me into revealing how easily I can be fooled.
If that sounds
like I am a stick in the mud then I wrote it correctly. I’ll come back to that.
Before I move
on, I see the irreverence in connecting April Fool’s Day with the Resurrection
and will not mention it. And yes, it was
the best ever prank on the Romans.
The digital
age has changed April Fool’s day a bit, although I understand people are still shrink
wrapping desks and buying rubber dog poo.
The internet is rife with examples of digital pranking, and that’s not
even addressing fake news. Which if it
is not fake, is like a double-prank.
Among the
casualties of age, we find we lose what we need the most; flexibility,
strength, and perhaps most ironic, perspective.
There’s more but put this near the top: the ability to laugh at
ourselves. See aforementioned ‘stick in
the mud’.
The origin of
the court jester, the fool, was to entertain.
In some cultures, the fool was given license to mock authority, and was
safe to hold a comedic mirror up to the stoic-in-charge/stick-in-the-mud. There is something in all human experience
that asks us to find some humor in our life or suffer the perils.
The need to
laugh, to act a fool, is obvious to most sensible people. The least sensible of us all don’t even consider
it, they simply live it. I point to any
children you meet, who are at any moment closest to foolish laughter, and
closest to joy.
Yesterday I
tripped over a message from Ann Lamott.
I was not looking where I was going and stumbled into it. Among her “12 Truths”, she said this while
addressing the truth about grace;
“But the phone will ring or the
mail will come and then against all odds, you'll get your sense of humor about
yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness. It helps us breathe again
and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and
each other.”
How fascinating
to think that at the heart of laughter, of foolishness, might be the key to
such deep peace. Or at the minimum, a
relief from the tension we carry from holding our position so firmly in the
mud.
Here’s what
seeped in through my mature adult veneer. Life will wear away our natural ability to find
the humor in our days, even when it is as close as ourselves. It is up to us to find the antidote.
I am not
certain I will find it by putting salt in your sugar bowl or leaving a fish
carcass in your desk; the antidote is not at someone else’s expense. But if the purpose is to find fun, find
laughter, then it is worth searching for a better choice. Guess I’m still working on that.
Any of us
might find our day lacking in something, and maybe laughing is not at the top of
your list. Fact is it might be at the
top of someone else’s list, and they are just waiting for you to come
along. Nothing better than laughing with
someone else.
Be a fool for
a friend. A fool for love. A fool for the dog. A fool for chocolate. A fool for yourself. Be an April Fool.
Hope
this finds you foolin around,
David
Copyright
© 2018 David Smith
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