Spiral

[I had an idea when i began,...
not sure where i went or ended up.]

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK



Foolishness is commonly associated with ignorance, and sometimes even identified with it. Those who identify the two are likely suffering from one or both of the very maladies they confound. Many who closely relate them, however, believe one is the cause or effect of the other.

Of these, some say ignorance makes us foolish, since the ignorant mind is comparable to a sparsely furnished room; walls barren of edifying sights, bookshelves almost bare, and a single quill pen, its chipped, rusted head buried inside a dry inkwell. With the mind so poorly furnished, and consequently incapable of providing sufficient intellectual stimulation, -- foolishness, they say, is inevitible.

Those who dispute this view, however, insists that foolishness makes us ignorant, since the foolish mind is comparable to a darkened room; indiscerible furniture casting weak, broad silouttes on the walls, all the books shrouded in twilight's last gleaming, and the page as black as the pen. What, say these men, does it matter how well a man's mind is furnished, if only he is born a fool, incapable of appreciating his other gifts?

If I thought I had to choose between these two views, I'd be fairly eager to choose the second.

For one thing, where we find foolishness, we find ignorance, as in the case of "where there's smoke there's fire"; the presence of foolishness confirms the precence of ignorance with greater regularity than the presence of ignorance confirms the presence of foolishness.

In the wise words of John Henry Newman:
"[We must consent to be ignorant of many things,
if we wish to be free to know any single thing well.]"

There is no ignoramous, no matter how lacking in curiosity, who is not an expert in some specialized field or other. If all he knows about is his own belly-button-lint, you can be sure there is a rigourously detailed, highly sophisticated world of arbitrary data, covering every aspect you'd even want to know (or hope to benefit from knowing) about lint on the tip of his tongue. "...lint on the tip of his tongue." Hmm. No pun intended.

If he is not a fool, then his ignorance may be easily "cured". If he is a brilliant man, he may take the insight of Cardinal Newman to heart. Rather than "curing" the ignorance by informing himself of all sorts of things, he may choose to remain blissfully oblivious to them, regardless of their seeming use or uselessness. Then, the only thing he'll no longer be ignorant of, will be the wisdom of simplicity; and his only knowledge will be not-knowing.

Not rejecting ignorance, some have embraced ignorance of the world. Not embracing knowledge, some have rejected knowledge of the world. For love of God, their greatest weaknesses became their greatest strengths!

And what of the fool?

There is no fool, no matter how slow, who cannot realize, through persistent effort, the subtlest truth in all the universe; for God reveals great mysteries even to babes, and loves thereby to confound the wise.

A fool is only foolish in the world. In God, he is not a fool. Or shall we call God a fool; the first and father of all fools? In which case, we may as well just call him Fool, and not God, right? The notion itself is moronic; oxymoronic. In giving his mind, be what it may, to God, a fool is preforming the wisest of meditations, and cannot be a fool.

The nature of foolishness here receives several revisions...

If even a fool, by the standards of the world, can succeed in doing what is, by God's standard, the wisest and more important thing, then we might have to reconsider just who the real fools are among us.

Likewise, as has been hinted at above, we should reconsider the premium we place on knowledge and, conversely, the stigma on ignorance; when the vast majority of information is useless, cluttering data (i.e garbage)

So there is need for discernment.

But, leaving aside the rarified heights of paradox, and the higher forms of ignorance and foolishness, let's consider again their more common manifestations, and resume our attempt to answer the question of origin.

For a time, I would have said the real culprit is apathy.

If an ignorant person cared (i.e. was not apathetic), he would be curious enough to inform himself; becoming less ignorant. Likewise, a fool who cares is also curious, and may end up much more sagacious than he began.
For there are some who are wise by virtue of natural gifts, others who gradually became wise through the long practice of thinking, and, lastly, some rare individuals who possess both the talent and the skill for contemplation.

A born fool may still belong in the company of the second type, and end his days in the care of philosophers; but, if he is apathetic, he is not only a born fool, but will die a fool as well.

What sort of room, I asked, might compare to the mind of apathy? One neither light nor dark, I supposed. Perhaps a few unfinished or uncracked books on the shelves... dust choking the air... and perched, where it has gathered, on the shoulders of recliners and mantlepieces, slumped and grey, like dead pigeons... and, yes, the old quill pen, barely used,... passed-out inside an inkwell full of dust.

But was apathy the problem? Or, like the others, might not apathy be a cover for some yet deeper affliction? I probed. What I found was hopelessness, and below that, faithlessness; people are hopeless before they are apathetic; and faithless before they are hopeless.

It seems to me both ignorance and foolishness stem from a common branch, which is lack of curiosity, and this, too, branches off from another, larger branch, called apathy, which is close to the trunk, and never bends. The trunk itself is called hoplessness, and the roots are faithlessness. This is a tree that grows in "the valley of evil".

I examined faithlessness and found it to be identical with despair; where faith was absent, despair was all.

It may appear counter-intuitive, to suppose that lesser evils have resulted from more terrible ones. Daily, we hear of problems escalating; begining small and innocent enough, before leading, gradually, so as to be almost imperceptible to the watchful soul, until they have emerged as something absolutely malevolent; unthinkable evil.

Such cases accord with common sense, and occur commonly, but they do not contradict this view.

I've followed only one avenue of inquiry, but, however I go, I'm certain to obtain the same result; were I to look behind rage, malice, or fear, sooner or later I would arrive at faithlessness; despair; nothing to believe in. The real misconception is our assumption that problems escalate away from their source; in fact, they lead back to it. The closer you get to the source of imbalance, the greater resistance you encounter.

If you are not wrestling demons, you are no threat to the Devil.