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A Fool's Bargain

Roger Housden on the virtues of being taken advantage of

Roger Housden

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The Fool From The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck®, ©1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.BEING A FOOL lets the cat out of my bag, the wind out of my sails. The word comes from the Latin follies, meaning “windbag, a pair of bellows.” The pleasure of being foolish lies precisely in the freedom it gives from self-importance and social expectations; the freedom from striving, from the pressure to impress others, to do things the way others do them.

A fool is simply not responsible in the way most people are. He knows he is ultimately not responsible for the way things turn out. He isn’t weighed down by the weight of the world. He knows the world won’t descend into chaos if he takes a nap for half an hour.

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