Fools

If April is the month of fools, maybe that's why I've been avoiding its shadow. 

The theory of the Greater Fool stipulates that an item is worth, not its intrinsic value but, the (irrational) expectations of the item's worth. That is to say, the Greater Fool sees beyond. When Aaron Sorkin dubs Will McAvoy  'The Greater Fool' on The Newsroom, he is referencing a person whose idealism triumphs over conventional wisdom. Like Don Quixote…or the person I think I used to be. 

It's risky, betting on something that has the potential to be brilliant or utterly backfire, but I've always believed that it was worth the risk. 

The question, then, begs when the Greater Fool becomes the Foolish-Fool. How do we gauge a good investment from a bad investment? When do those foolish enough to stir the pot say "when?" 

I wish I knew. I know that, over the past year, I have been confronted with the many ways a person can be foolish. My nose has turned impossibly red, from fool's tears and my face even more so, from the number of times I've been embarrassed. Like a clown--the laughing stock of my own life. But what is the point of moving forward, if we don't take those feelings with us? 

I think I'm stronger for it. Capable of standing up for myself a little more--of knowing how to when the situation arises. This introvert has been extroverted and re-worn, inside out,  like a Target sweater. Like an unexpected metamorphosis, my transitional year has been full of the sorts of life lessons one never expects. I have to think they all happened for a reason. That, if nothing else, these lessons have occurred now so that I have filled my quota and this impossible life of mine can run a little smoother, on the next go. 

Maybe the one who wakes up from fistfuls of foolhardy Fridays only to be too frightened to to go after fate, is the fool. And I, having grown not simply afraid of April's shadow--but my own, am potentially the greatest fool of all. 

BUT pity the fool too petrified to put her best foot forward. I know I still expect tomorrow to be better than the days before it, even when I don't know how to verbalize it…or am too afraid of my shadow, to leave the safety of my home after sunset. But the bravest parts of me know that, even if I'm wrong about everything I believe to be true, my foolishness won't come from giving up. 

So I'll give the 'fool' away. For every mistake that wasn't mine…and never will be. We cannot be named fool for other people's faux pas. 

That would be foolish.