Jest the Facts

Recently, I did something foolish.

Well, let me expand upon that statement: I have done many foolish things in my life, and thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you about the most recent one.

Now, when I say “most recent” – this is a bit like trying to explain the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. I can provide you with a long list of foolish things I’ve done and tell you when I did them, but that’s not to say by the time I finish telling you about a past foolish incident that I won’t have already laid the groundwork for the *next* foolish thing I am inevitably about to do.

I should look at my history of foolishness not as a random series of discreet incidents but as a continuum interrupted by only the briefest moments of aptitude and/or sheer luck.

I came into this world a fool and I’ll exit it the same. As the noted philosopher G.W. Bush once proclaimed: “Fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.” And yet, again and again, I have either gotten fooled or fooled myself into thinking I’d achieved something worthwhile or unique – only to find out it was neither. Much like “W” himself.

“A fool and his money are soon parted” – I’m reminded of this proverb every month when I look at the credit card statement.

“He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man – follow him; he who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool.” This was said by either Confucius or Donald Rumsfeld; I knows not which.

The Beatles sang mournfully about a “fool on the hill” who “sees the sun going down / and the eyes in his head / see the world spinning round.” Why did they feel it necessary to specify this fool’s eyes are “in his head”? Where else would they be located? Or were McCartney and Lennon picturing Mr. Potato Head whilst writing this tune, exercising poetic license to focus on just two of his many eyes?

Hmm… I think I’ve strayed from my original premise.

And illustrated my point.