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The testimonial thing didn't really work You guys are great sports, though - thanks for having a go! I think what I had in mind was that people would come to my page and see a stack of testimonials at the side there all saying the same thing but using different words for 'fool', thus - "He's a fool"; "He's a daftie"; "He's a loony"; "He's a screwball"; "He's a jackass"; "He's a mooncalf"; "He's a simpleton"; etc. You guys basically got it right - 'pumpkinhead', 'cretin', 'mug', 'pierrot lunette', 'goofy-fuck' (thank you Pygmy ), all excellent - I just wasn't specific enough about the form, that's all. Ah well. It was meant to add to the whole theme of foolishness I'm trying for here on Jackwit-page.

So I got to thinking again about why this obssession with foolishness. It's no simple, clear-cut matter. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the idea of the archetypal fool, or that of the holy fool. Basically it's someone who stands apart from society and its values, and someone who least embodies the relatively modern obssession with using the cold intellect to judge everything in life. This 'fool' figure is a living mockery of the stupidity of intellectual pretension, and all pretension in fact. The fool sees with his heart, and so sees clearly, wisely, realistically. To the obscuring, unwise, unrealistic intellect of most, such a person seems nothing but foolish. See? He is unavoidably a nuisance because he sees through things people don't want to be seen through.

So why me? 'You're an intelligent fellow', you may protest. Maybe. But the fool streak (we'll call it a streak, though it's more than that, runs deeper than that) is strong in me and comes naturally to me. I do have, and have had my whole life, that tendency to see through people without knowing I'm doing it - I tend to say things to people about themselves that show I can see past any pretences, large or small; but I'm oblivious to the impropriety of it; I only realise how, at best, rude it was to have said whatever sometime after the fact.

What makes it shocking to my 'victims' (friends, strangers, whomever) is that, in real life, I am, as a matter of fact, genuinely guile-less; I come across as an authentic semi-simpleton - not too talkative, not au fait with most aspects of everyday, 'normal' life, not employed, lost in daydreams, carefree in dress and manner........foolish. Maybe 'simple' is the word that suits me best, in all that it suggests.

So nobody expects me to come out with any kind of insight; when I do, a look of surprise and confusion, and even worry, plays across their face, like I've torn their mask off and they don't know what to do next. And I really don't mean to do it. Even people who've been on the receiving end of this for long periods of time, like the closest friends I've had over the years, never get used to it - my 'simplicity' is so dominant and constant that it takes them a long time to adjust; they, generally, are very unsure about how they should speak to me and behave around me, because, I think, there's no way to get an 'angle' on a simple person - there's usually little or no vanity or ambition, in the popular sense, in them, or avarice, nothing like that to appeal to. I can be manipulated like anyone else, being guile-less, but never for long; and it's always my guile-lessness that gets me out again. Being a clever clogs might help you avoid being manipulated, but it'll get you into a lot more trouble into the bargain.

I think people in general live that way - always looking for ways to play each other in one regard or another, whether friends or foes; always angling for opportunities to make their own lives better at the expense of others. This can happen in the most inoffensive of ways, even amongst loved ones. It's egotism, pure and simple, the defining trait of modern life. We seek advantage for our ego, always, coddling it like a baby.

The simpleton has no ego, in a way. The simpleton maybe embodies the true ego behind all individual egos. It's my contention (and I'm far from alone in this) that the true ego of humanity is the being known to us over the last 2000 years as the 'Christ'. The 'Holy Fool' is someone who gives up their ego, or is born almost without one, and by virtue of this possesses a distinct prescience that acts as their dominant feature; they see with God's eyes, as it were; and not despite but because of their lack of self-seeking. They don't need the intellect, or ambition, or plans; they have providence.

But in a Godless world the fool (holy/religious or not) is not popular, being a representative of unvarnished truth in a world where lies are the stock and trade. And there's that funny situation where the fool is neither great or small, because they see with the eyes of God yet exist on earth among men and their personal, egotistic, anti-God ideas about life. The fool is elevated by God and laid low by men at one and the same time. It would, for instance, be literally impossible for a fool to boast or brag about anything. Nothing they have is theirs. And they know the illusion of the rest of the world that any form egotism takes is worthwhile. An egotistic person is like a plant that believes it can grow without soil. Egotism is almost a form of madness; in fact, you could say it is the form of madness in our current age.

Saint Francis is the most famous holy fool, and he actually applied the term to himself. Francis hated learning, books, 'book-smarts'; he strictly forbade any of his monks to read or carry books, even bibles (each group had one bible for itself). He was a type of mystic who went without an intellect, and in so doing became spiritually one with nature (hence his well-known love of flora and fauna, of the elements and so on). He went without an ego; his humility was second to none. And in debasing himself as a physical human he became ever greater spiritually (it's said that, because he went about in sackcloth all his life, dirty and emaciated, he now shines more brightly than almost any of the other saints in the spiritual world). What is greatness in the eyes of men may not be greatness in the eyes of God, and all that.

So. What is it about me? I feel ego-less, that's for sure. Whether this is something divinely instigated or whether I'm just chicken-shit about being myself and doing what I want in life, I don't know.

I do know I'm never happier than when being foolish. I never feel freer.

I came home from a long walk in the spring sunshine the other day, caught my reflection in the mirror, and saw that the end of my nose was covered in golden-yellow pollen from a dandelion I'd sniffed near the start of the walk. I'd gone past quite a few people like this, in my grubby, paint-spattered trousers, and woolly jersey with holes in the elbows. I thought this was hilarious. My mum was around so I showed her my golden nose - she gave me one of those good-humoured 'what are we going to do with you?' looks and said 'fool'. In that moment I was almost ecstatically happy

Jeck oan his Tod wi God

Nemmit Jeck tae nae man,
naebdy;
naebdy kens ye;
naething ye waur, wull be,
are,
till abeen ye'll be, laddie.

Sae jist jouk joco
an bide yer lane
ablow the noo
in yer scaffy shoon
an tatty nae-sae-braws,
till ah come fir ye
an show ye whit yer made o.