My approach to psychotherapy includes the removal and reduction of symptoms, and, at least as importantly, seeking out and integrating skills and personality parts that have been missing from the lives of my clients. I’ve noticed that there is a particular subset of overlapping skills that often goes missing together:
- The capacity to tolerate not knowing and not controlling
- The capacity to take risks
- The capacity to stop being so serious and appreciate the humor in life
- The capacity to experience joy, and savor what they do have
But these are just abstract concepts. We need an image that the right hemisphere of the brain can hold onto to help us to carry these ideas into daily life.
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The Archetype of the Fool
There’s an archetype for that. (Archetypes are universal patterns of potential experience, which, like apps, can be activated with intention through their imagery.) In this case, it’s the archetype of the Fool, and he’s smarter than everyone thinks. He’s smarter because he doesn’t assume he knows everything, he doesn’t worry about what he doesn’t know, and he does know how to have a really good time.
But he’s got a bad rep. His ways are contrary to how we usually function, and most people keep him at a safe distance, which is really unfortunate because those are the people that need him the most to reassure them that there is another way to live.
(I’ll be referring to the Fool as “him” for convenience, but it could just as well be a “her.”)
He’s quite conversant with the research literature which says:
We don’t know what will make us happy in the future.
We are happier when we risk going after what we want rather than avoiding what we don’t want.
Gratitude increases happiness, fulfillment and well-being.
And, the Fool knew all about this stuff long before any research labs existed.
What is the Purpose of Archetype of the Fool?
Like apps, archetypes serve a purpose. Befriend this part of you, and you have an ally that offers energy and wisdom that other parts of you don’t offer. Focus on their image, and you can activate parts of the brain that theorizing does not.
While neuroscientists aren’t racing to study archetypes, I suspect that we will eventually understand archetypes as neural modules or networks in the brain that have served particular evolutionary functions. The Fool evolved, I believe, to counter a rigid and limiting approach to life, one that perfectionists and people with obsessive-compulsive personality use to arm themselves against the corruption of mistakes.
For some, this Fool module was never activated. For others it was deactivated, perhaps when parents, career or kids demanded serious diligence that ruled out any engagement with the Fool.
The Fool in Literature and His Role in Life
The Fool has played important roles in mythology and literature for thousands of years and in thousands of incarnations. These roles show a more positive side of their character traits that our culture often rejects. The Fool, these stories tell us, survives and thrives.
Recent examples of the Fool in media include Forest Gump, Homer Simpson, Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther movies, Peter Sellars in Being There, and Winnie the Pooh. I could go on and on, but I hope this small sampling and other examples I’ll be sharing make it apparent that the Fool has long been a part of all cultures, and that without him, we become stale, sterile and stuck.
When we befriend the Fool we can tolerate not knowing, put aside what other people think about us, and savor what our lives have to offer. In all cases the Fool is trying to help us loosen up from our default driven and serious approach to life, and to instead live with openness, flexibility, curiosity and awe. He offers us a time-tested model for a different approach to living which can be very liberating when things get difficult.
All of which sounds to me like a pretty good antidote app for people who tend to be obsessive, compulsive, Type-A, and perfectionistic.
The Fool is not meant to replace the practical approach to life your executive ego adopts, but to supplement it. By serving as a co-pilot, the Fool can correct for misdirection. Left to its own devices the ego drives off into psychic inflation—the delusion that we can control everything with seriousness and willpower–and tries to dominate the entire personality. Life turns lopsided.
Those of us with these tendencies, who perhaps need the Fool the most, reject his silliness and try to deny him a role in our journey. We avoid him like an outbreak and lock him in the trunk, fearing we would be infected with his casual approach and lose our higher moral ground. We prefer to identify with the king or queen, unflappable, in control and maintaining perfect order in our universe.
But kings and queens are fallible, and in the medieval court the Fool was the one, the only one, allowed to point this out, to question or make fun of them, and in doing so save them from the dangers of their egoistic inflation. With the Fool in the trunk, you get lost easily.
So, should you be interested in avoiding the seriousness and rigidity of egoistic inflation, here are four lessons from the Fool:
1. Empty your mind
2. Live with courage
3. See the humor
4. Cultivate joy and presence
Let’s explore these in greater detail.
1. Empty Your Mind: You Don’t Need to Have All the Answers Already
In fairy tales the Fool shows up as the dummling or simpleton that surprises everyone by succeeding. He’s the 3rd of three brothers, who, despite sporting what seems like a head that’s completely empty, solves the local crisis and wins the king’s daughter.
In fact, it’s the emptiness that explains his success: with no preconceptions, no need to know already, he finds novel ways to solve old problems. One source of the word “fool” is “windbag,” with an implication of an empty head. You can look at that in different ways, but there are times when emptying our head so that something new can come in is the smart idea.
Which reminds me of the Zen concept of Beginner’s Mind and the many Holy Fools who emptied their minds and cruised lightly toward enlightenment. When we use Beginner’s Mind we see everything with new eyes. We make no assumptions about how things are, or are supposed to be, but instead perceive with a fresh, more objective, perspective.
One of the great examples of living with Beginner’s Mind is Ryokan (1759-1831), the unconventional Japanese Buddhist monk and poet known as The Great Fool. Rather than start a serious monastery and fill the minds of serious students with serious ideas as his serious compatriots did, Ryokan celebrated the simple pleasures of life and shunned the status and cunning of the adult world. He loved playing with children, writing poetry, and wandering aimlessly without checking his location on Apple Maps. Though he was raised in a scholarly environment, his life was his teaching, not complicated discourses on morals. Being was more important than knowing.
Here is one of his poems:
Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
(Trans. John Stephens)
For a lot of people with obsessive-compulsive personality, knowledge is control. And we all know, of course, that control is everything. Ryokan tells us it is nothing. Empty the mind rather than fill it.
For instance, we are very bad at predicting what will make us happy in the future. Being openminded is key to savoring the present.
2. Live With Courage, Ignore Convention and Take Risks
The image of the Fool in the Tarot teaches us a lot about the second tool, living with courage. Carefree, he stares up into the sky as he stands on the edge of a cliff, flirting with chaos and completely unperturbed by his dangerous situation. Eccentric in his attire and playful in his behavior, he defies convention and yet survives. He represents new beginnings and faith in the future.
Since he doesn’t need to hoard or prepare for all possible catastrophes, the Fool carries only a pole and sack over his shoulder. But he does keep a dog as a companion, a dog who keeps him humble by pulling his pants down periodically to reveal his humanity. He’s out for a joyful adventure, excited by new possibilities. He’s not worried about control or planning or the progress of his individual retirement account at Morgan Stanley.
A modern Tarot deck might replace that image with one of my favorite examples of the Fool, Ted Lasso, the hero of the television program of the same name. Lasso is an American football coach who leaves his life in the American Midwest to venture across the pond and coach a struggling soccer team in the UK. He knows nothing about soccer, and is indifferent to this lacunae. That’s a good start for a stint as a Fool, not knowing and not worrying.
Ted Lasso. Credit: Universal Television / Album
Once he arrives, like a good archetypal Fool, Lasso defies the conventional values of competition and achievement pervasive in soccer. He takes more interest in promoting the well-being and growth of his players. In that, he succeeds wildly.
The Fool lives by grace, not by will.[i] While we don’t necessarily need to have a specific faith that a divine figure will rescue us, it is skillful to consider that things don’t always go wrong and they often go right. In fact, trying to control life by not taking risks increases the chances of a meaningless and unfulfilling life.
Eeyore was wrong: the sky is not falling. And you don’t have to spend your life running from cave to cave trying to dodge it.
3. See the Humor
The Fool provides comic relief, and points out that the seriousness that makes us rigid, perfectionistic, and over-conscientious is the real foolishness.
One of my favorite scenes in literature is from Herman Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf and it’s about this very issue. Harry is a 49 year-old Steppenwolf, a lone wolf. He’s ready to kill himself because he believes that he will never be able to resolve the conflict inside of him between his animal side and his human side.
He is critical of the ideals of the bourgeoisie yet envious of those who have bought into them. He rejects both their indulgence and productivity, which leaves him empty-handed. He’s bereft of meaning and is just about ready to give up searching for an answer.
Then, late one night, he ends up in the dreamlike state of the Magic Theatre and encounters the composer Mozart. Mozart is Harry’s life-long hero, and, in this setting, a manifestation of the Fool. While Mozart wrote some exquisite music that was dead serious, many of his most-beloved operas were comedies, and he was known to be silly and irresponsible. Reportedly, he even called himself a fool.
He tells Harry that he has abused the Magic Theatre with excessively serious behavior, that life is never perfect, and that what Harry needs to do now is face this fact with laughter. Laughter has always been difficult for Harry, but his encounter with Mozart inspires him and he leaves the Magic Theatre with hope.
Many obsessive-compulsive people feel a responsibility to be serious, but, as Mozart points out, seriousness is a questionable virtue.
4. Cultivate Joy and Presence
Another lesson from the Fool is how to enjoy life. Like Winnie the Pooh, Today is his favorite day of the week. To those who obsess about what’s wrong and what could go wrong as if the universe depended on them to prevent disaster, the fool might seem to us oblivious to reality. But that’s why we need to befriend him. We, too, need to be able to savor the present rather than soak in pressure.
Because the Fool doesn’t feel the need to know or predict or prevent anything, when he goes to see a show, he sees the show. Without the Fool you’re focused on the fact that it’s started raining cats and dogs outside and you forgot your umbrella and your car is far away and your hair is going to be destroyed and what a waste it was to have had it done today and you should have saved the money and oh…wait….You mean the show is over? 
Imagine what it would be like instead to have the Laughing Buddha as your friend guiding you at the show. The 10th century Buddhist monk Budai, the Holy Fool or Laughing Buddha, was known as a simple monk whose heart was particularly loving and whose mind was always in the present. He loves a good joke, an extra dollop of butter pecan ice cream, and going to shows where he becomes so completely immersed he forgets the rest of the world exists.
Budai wasn’t known for dispensing intellectual wisdom in the same way as the Buddha did. His life of simplicity and good nature was his lecture. If he “knew” anything, it was how to have a good time.
True Fools and Rejected Fools
But isn’t it possible to be truly foolish? Yes, there is a such thing as a True Fool, someone who is oblivious to the realities of life and careens from disaster to disaster—often leaving others to clean up the mess. This is what happens when there is only a Fool, no executive ego (King or Queen) to balance him.
The Fool should be a companion on the journey, a co-pilot. Not the driver.
But locking the Holy Fool in the trunk doesn’t make for a good journey either. Without his assistance we get mired in the muddy patches because our minds are too rigid and too clogged to see other possibilities. Even worse, it can become dangerous.
Shakespeare was particularly fond of the Fool and shows us what happens when you reject him. Just ask King Lear, the subject of one of Shakespeare’s best-known tragedies, what happened when he ignored his Fool.
When it’s time for the aging Lear to divvy up his kingdom, he feels the need to know which of his three daughters love him the most before handing over the keys. His two older daughters protest how deeply they love him, with claims so over the top and so superficial you might think you’ve landed in a very bad episode of The Brady Bunch.
In contrast, Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, incensed with the spectacle and brimming with integrity, refuses to join in and says nothing about her love for her father. Desperate for assurance that he is loved, and enraged that Cordelia won’t give it, Lear assumes the worst and goes postal. His need to control his love objects is out of control, and he disinherits her. 
His faithful servant and advisory Fool, the Earl of Kent, counsels him not to abandon her. But Lear’s head is too full of his own ideas and banishes the Fool completely—along with the wisdom that might have saved him.
Sure enough, once they’ve got what they want, the older daughters refuse to take him into their homes and Lear becomes an alien in his own land. He goes mad. He eventually recognizes his error, but just to make sure we all get the point, Shakespeare kills off everybody.
Trying to live without the counterweight of the Fool will throw you off balance and make you crazy.
Befriending the Fool
How can we use the image of the Fool to be more whole? How do we befriend this part of ourselves that has seemed so foreign to us so far? We need to create experiences that activate our inner Fool, not just theorize about him and analyze him from a distance. Images, stories and imagination can create experiences that impact us in ways that reason alone cannot.
If you have an obsessive-compulsive or perfectionistic personality, all four of these tools may feel very strange, and may take time to cultivate. While it is possible to develop the tools that the Fool offers, it takes conscious intention, since these “Fool Tools” take you in the opposite direction from the coping strategies you’ve been using so far.
• Name the character of your favorite Fool, call their image to mind, and ask what he or she would do in your particular circumstance.
• If you were the king or queen, what would the Fool whisper in your ear that you need to change?
• Find an image of your favorite Fool and put it in a conspicuous place for a week (phone, fridge, mirror), welcoming him as a friend and model, and reminding you of his potential. Move it a week later so that you continue to notice it. For anything to really get under your skin, you’ll need repetition and immersion.
Then, with the Fool at your side, answer these questions in a journal:
• What old ideas and values has your mind become stuffed with that lead you to be rigid?
• What are your core fears and how do they block your courage?
• What absurdities in your life can you laugh at?
• What aspects of your life can you savor in this moment?
The Fool has much to offer us if we can put our pride aside temporarily, stuff our judgement in the trunk, and be open to a less stiff and stern approach. May the Fool be with you.
[i] Rogers, P. (1987). The fool and the king. Psychological Perspectives, 18(2), 398–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332928708410867
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