How to become smarter while looking like a fool

w A damned long time ago, it was a jester’s role and life’s purpose to make the king laugh. The jester, also known as the fool, is a master of finding the right thing to say at the ‘wrong’ or inappropriate time: to make people laugh.

The jester slowly evolved from making the king laugh, to a role of reminding. Reminding the people around him that they are only human, life is all one big game, and it’s normal to see many parts of life as idiotic.

The fool was a reminder of finitude. A reminder of how little it takes to turn one’s natural state of living to a state of non-living.

These ideas largely come from a famous philosopher Alan Watts. Watts believed that the court jester’s seemingly foolish antics often contained profound wisdom.

By acting in unconventional ways, the fool could reveal the absurdity of current social conventions and seemingly bring out others’ realization to a more flexible and human approach to life. Although many people thought the fool a fool, he was in reality far from being so.