Hero And Fool
From time to time we need to be separated from ourselves
to gaze upon ourselves from above, and,
from an artistic distance, to laugh and cry over ourselves.
We must discover the hero no less than the fool
in our passion for knowledge;
we must occasionally find pleasure in our folly
or we cannot continue to find pleasure in our wisdom.
Precisely because we are at bottom grave and serious human beings –
really more weights than human beings—
nothing does us as much good as a fool’s hat;
we need it in relation to ourselves–
we all need exuberant, floating, dancing, mocking,
childish, and blissful art
lest we lose the freedom above things
that our ideal demands of us.
–excerpt, The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche §107
I possess a fool’s hat, a reminder that I am a silly animal.
What song shall we choose to enliven our spirits? This one by Patty Smyth works: The Warrior.
Civilized? Surely you cannot be thinking of me and the other Starbucks’ patrons here in the room… I laugh out loud! I am dying while laughing. Where is the fool’s hat?