What kind of fool am I?
Apr. 1st, 2008 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
- William Shakespeare (English dramatist, poet, fool), As You Like It, Act 5, Scene i
Today is April Fool's Day. You will not find any pranks, ruses or confidence scams here; the trust of my readers (both of you!) is precious and vouchsafed to my heart, and besides that, you would totally see it coming.
Apparently, today's objective and modus operandi is to trick one's friends and neighbors into appearing foolish -- to inflate the already bloated ranks of global morons. But even on a day named "Fool's Day," we rarely consider the actual societal contributions of the world's assorted fools.
First of all, "fool" can mean a variety of things. According to my trusty Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the word can refer to a "a person lacking in judgment or prudence," or "a harmlessly deranged person," or "one who is victimized or made to look foolish." There are distinctions between these definitions, though I am by no means precluding individuals from being all three at once (Mr. President, I'm looking in your direction).
Of most interest to me, however, is definition 2a: "a retainer formally kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells and bauble; i.e., JESTER, CLOWN." I have a soft spot for this particular brand of fool, and in fact I have long aspired to be one. I am somewhat embarassed to admit that in high school, I harbored a deep but unspoken desire to be known and voted as "Class Clown."
Growing up as an awkward, lumpy, bookish sort of child, with none of the natural interpersonal charm that the cute boys so freewheelingly dispensed, my only recourse for peer acceptance was to try and be funny. I'm not saying it worked -- I was essentially a social leper until puberty mercilessly abated and girls started to view literacy as a turn-on -- but it did keep me from getting beat up on a few occasions.
Unfortunately, by my high school years, I was neither funny enough nor loud enough to capture the prize. If I want to be kinder to my legacy, I can speculate that my smug brand of humor -- cynical, world-weary wisecracks and fleetingly clever puns on words like "subjunctive" -- were not such a hit with the greater 17-year-old population. I thought I was a real hoot, but the fact is, I never really made anyone laugh with me.
Ultimately, the Class Clown title went to a guy who was loud, obnoxious and I guess kind-of funny -- but most importantly, he wasn't afraid to look stupid. (That, or he really was stupid, a notion I can't dismiss out of hand.) Whether I was too proud or too stuffy, that was not something I was willing to do.
So apparently I wasn't fit to play that kind of fool. But I remain hopeful that someday I will be just stupid and immature enough to be considered someone's resident court jester, perhaps in the form of a discursive, self-satisfied, pseudo-intellectual LiveJournal. I'm sure there are funnier journals out there. But how many of them would be so desperate for attention that they would include a link to this sexually explicit picture of Jennifer Love Hewitt (NSFW)?
- William Shakespeare (English dramatist, poet, fool), As You Like It, Act 5, Scene i
Today is April Fool's Day. You will not find any pranks, ruses or confidence scams here; the trust of my readers (both of you!) is precious and vouchsafed to my heart, and besides that, you would totally see it coming.
Apparently, today's objective and modus operandi is to trick one's friends and neighbors into appearing foolish -- to inflate the already bloated ranks of global morons. But even on a day named "Fool's Day," we rarely consider the actual societal contributions of the world's assorted fools.
First of all, "fool" can mean a variety of things. According to my trusty Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the word can refer to a "a person lacking in judgment or prudence," or "a harmlessly deranged person," or "one who is victimized or made to look foolish." There are distinctions between these definitions, though I am by no means precluding individuals from being all three at once (Mr. President, I'm looking in your direction).
Of most interest to me, however, is definition 2a: "a retainer formally kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells and bauble; i.e., JESTER, CLOWN." I have a soft spot for this particular brand of fool, and in fact I have long aspired to be one. I am somewhat embarassed to admit that in high school, I harbored a deep but unspoken desire to be known and voted as "Class Clown."
Growing up as an awkward, lumpy, bookish sort of child, with none of the natural interpersonal charm that the cute boys so freewheelingly dispensed, my only recourse for peer acceptance was to try and be funny. I'm not saying it worked -- I was essentially a social leper until puberty mercilessly abated and girls started to view literacy as a turn-on -- but it did keep me from getting beat up on a few occasions.
Unfortunately, by my high school years, I was neither funny enough nor loud enough to capture the prize. If I want to be kinder to my legacy, I can speculate that my smug brand of humor -- cynical, world-weary wisecracks and fleetingly clever puns on words like "subjunctive" -- were not such a hit with the greater 17-year-old population. I thought I was a real hoot, but the fact is, I never really made anyone laugh with me.
Ultimately, the Class Clown title went to a guy who was loud, obnoxious and I guess kind-of funny -- but most importantly, he wasn't afraid to look stupid. (That, or he really was stupid, a notion I can't dismiss out of hand.) Whether I was too proud or too stuffy, that was not something I was willing to do.
So apparently I wasn't fit to play that kind of fool. But I remain hopeful that someday I will be just stupid and immature enough to be considered someone's resident court jester, perhaps in the form of a discursive, self-satisfied, pseudo-intellectual LiveJournal. I'm sure there are funnier journals out there. But how many of them would be so desperate for attention that they would include a link to this sexually explicit picture of Jennifer Love Hewitt (NSFW)?
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 02:15 pm (UTC)-GDM
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 11:03 pm (UTC)