Fool’s and clowns play with other people, beliefs and situations.
The Fool’s playfulness is an invitation to a more creative and experimental approach to life. Fool’s of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains! Slavery to social conventions and fear of taking risks is optional. The Fool or the clown can be our ally in taking us beyond our fixed opinions and ideas. In the realm beyond `judgment’, the Fool wants to understand ideas, behaviours, and conventions. These elements play a significant role in our lives. The Fool does this without `making them wrong’. Like the baggy clothes on a clown, some beliefs are ill fitting and awkward. They serve a purpose. But over time, beliefs can be a coping strategy that is maladaptive. They cease to be helpful and may stifle our growth, flexibility and potential to enjoy life.
The role of play.
Play is hard to define. Play is something to be experienced. Play can be any activity or past time that is enjoyed for its own reward. Play focuses more on the journey or means. It is less concerned with obtaining outcomes or finding the most efficient way of completing a task. Play helps us to stand outside of the ordinary and experience another realm of life. A realm of possibility and freedom. The freedom that comes from identifying our beliefs, questioning them and holding them lightly.
Comics, clowns and jesters play with ideas. They hold them lightly. A clown may grab a piece of furniture and use this as a prop. A jester uses mirth and comedy. They skewer and provoke figures in authority. They highlight the weaknesses of the Ruler or other figures in authority. The Jester can get away with this because they can help the ruler to laugh at themselves. We can be similarly inspired. We can examine some of our beliefs and start to play with them. To question our own attachment to `looking good’, being `perfect’ and wanting to project a flawless image. `What if, like a costume, I tried on a new behaviour?’, explored and played with being the opposite?
Self-compassion: being gentle with ourselves and our beliefs.
There was a popular TV show in my teenage years. It was about a group of engineers who worked to defuse unexploded bombs during World War 2. In some episodes, the tension was palpable as one mistake could literally explode in the face of the military engineers. There are some beliefs that are formed on the bedrock of traumatic or horrible early life experiences. These are best approached with some caution and professional help. People with a trauma experience are often tempted to adopt an `all or nothing’ approach. It is wiser, regardless of your background, to start small and take calculated risks. There are beliefs that shape our behaviour that are mildly neurotic, annoying and frustrating. One of the most common beliefs is that making mistakes or failure is bad.
The fear of making mistakes doth make cowards of us all! (to paraphrase William Shakespeare).
This fear helps drives perfectionistic behaviour. Fear of making mistakes can lead us to shrink back, stifle our freedom to take risks beyond our comfort zone. One of the most potent and annoying beliefs that keeps many people in chains is that making mistakes is bad. This fear-based belief is probably more responsible for keeping many of us from trying new things. I heard a sage-like person comment that `fear relates to loss’. At the heart of fear is the loss of something that is important to us. Looking incompetent, `amateurish’ or `foolish’ is part of the pathway of learning to master or attain competency in any area. For many of us, there is a struggle. We wish to try something new, but we are haunted by the fear of looking bad or incompetent and inviting ridicule.
Play is a way to reconcile opposites and reduce inner conflict.
I have always liked Shakespeare and wanted to busk in the local Mall. I have a strong, critical voice. It likes to shame me for making mistakes. It whispers in my ear, `What will other people think?’ Trying to ignore the critical inner voice never worked. Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the inner critic appears long enough to cause distress and discomfort. I tried a different tack: `What if I did a Shakespeare recital in the public and did it really badly?’ Instead of memorising lines, I would read from a script in public. I shared the idea with friends and they were caught up in the slipstream of my enthusiasm. We created a performing troupe for one evening. We called it `The Really Awful Shakespeare Company.’
As we read from Hamlet and other works, with no attempt at perfection, the response was amazing. Free of our critical inhibitions to be `good’, `perfect’ and looking very `foolish’, some other people stopped to listen. Two young adult males approached us. A woman also joined them. They said: `You look like you’re really having a good time…what are you doing?’ This happened several times. Some onlookers joined in sharing their fleeting knowledge of quotes from Shakespeare they remembered from school. This was an experience of festivity outside of the temporary constraints of social conventions and fixed opinions.
- Step out – pick an area of your life that you want to explore. Where do you feel lacklustre, stifled and lack expression?
- Choose your level of risk. Pick something small (larger level risks can have negative consequences that can end in regret. I will explore this topic in future blog post)
- What are the beliefs behind your inhibition?
- How do they serve you? What are the positives?
- Pick something you want to try and do it poorly. Revel in this until you can enjoy failing. Fail magnificently!
Foolish Times 