I'll take the rose-colored spectacles, please

Showdown at high noon, originally uploaded by scrollwork.

Damn those glasses! They weren't rose-tinted enough for me.

Have you had enough reality for a while? Me too. I do the obligatory news scan online for a few minutes every morning, but that's it. The rest of my day, unless there's a global disaster, nothing is permitted to intrude on my equanimity.

It's a matter of survival: the survival of my delusion that all will be right with the world, and if it isn't, that I have a modicum of control over any part of the outcome. (I am not discounting prayer by any means! But it's still up to God, not me.)

If I don't subscribe to that outlook, how else could I go on stitching happily away at a frock to free it from its frumpy beginnings? How could I justify creating "art" that won't feed hungry children, only my vain, selfish soul? How could I have so much passion about teaching people to dance, to uncoil their inner springs and be surprised by how they can move?

I would be irrelevant to myself without my rose-tinted lenses. It would be a constant indictment of the hours spent blogging, photographing, dreaming, seeing what could be beyond what is.

But because I choose to keep those lenses firmly clapped over my eyes, I can take risks, make short-term sacrifices, air my shortcomings, stay the course, make peace with uncertainty, and love my spouse.

I can bear the garden's barrenness in winter, the shrunken pocketbook in lean times, the thickened waist in midlife.

I can choose what to build, what to grow, what to explore, never mind if the point isn't immediately apparent, if the checks aren't in the mail, if the blog comments are withheld.

I can finally stop seeking the counsel of others, and see in myself all the expertise I need for the task I've chosen for myself. And in this, I can be irreplaceable, no longer irrelevant.

Do you need rose-tinted glasses? Take mine; I have an extra pair.

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How to be a fool (and what’s in it for you)

The Doodle Fool poem and print by IntentionalArts

Scrollwork’s School for Fools, Part Three
See Part Two, Why you should listen to a fool

Not many folks take a fool seriously these days. But kings, pharaohs, tyrants, and despots knew to keep their fools close.

Today’s wise leader sets aside the chorus of yessayers to seek the fool’s counsel. You might suddenly find yourself in the role of the fool. If you have lousy luck, you’ll have a boss who hires you for your expertise but treats you like a fool—in the contemporary sense. Such people have either not heard or chosen to ignore the adage, “Don’t hire a dog and then do the barking yourself.”

What’s a modern fool to do? Here’s an idea: Embrace the role!

Do you want to overcome a fear of failure? Become a Court Jester. Are you afraid of looking like a fool? Then look like a fool with purpose and panache. Be contrary! Make fun of all sides of an idea! Buck the status quo! And whether you stand on the podium with a trophy or on the sidelines with egg on your face, you will have fed your soul and had fun in the process.

~ Timothy Johnson, Carpe Factum

There is something incredibly freeing about being the fool.

The artist is still a little like the old court jester. He's supposed to speak his vicious paradoxes with some sense in them, but he isn't part of whatever the fabric is that makes a nation.

~ William Faulkner

How do you prefer to offer help—as an expert or a fool?

Why you should listen to a fool. Especially your inner fool.

The Reluctant Fool by LeslieLeeArt

Scrollwork’s School for Fools, Part Two
See Part One, Scrollwork's School for Fools Now Open



Roger Van Oech has a favorite strategy for stimulating creative thinking: Think like a fool. Fools everywhere take this as a compliment.


Roger notes that besides being a truth-teller, a fool challenges assumptions, sees what others overlook, and takes the contrary position in ways that make us think twice. If nothing else, a fool, when heeded, may avert disaster that nobody sees coming.


Once, an institution atop a hill decided to mark a milestone. They would ask a local boy who had made good to return to his provincial hometown and speak at the event. Everyone praised the plan. They asked the new scribe to draft a letter of invitation. It was practically a done deal, as the local boy had already spoken at a previous milestone.


The scribe Googled the invitee’s accomplishments to flatter him with their mention. Six links down was a detailed account of a world-renowned institution’s grim displeasure at the invitee’s admitted plagiarism. Horrified, the scribe derailed the plan and appealed to the man in the corner office.


The experience was rather like pointing out the emperor’s butt nakedness as the fans praised his exquisite new duds. The scribe realized that in following her own code of ethics, she had taken on the role of the fool. Would anyone listen?


The chief pennyraiser’s concern was dealing delicately with the major moneygiver who had suggested inviting the plagiarist. After much hemming and hawing, the plan was scrapped. 


The institution then invited the Equivalent of the Queen, who accepted, to everyone’s shocked delight. The institution made history, as it was her first speech following the election coronation. The near-disaster with the disgraced local boy quickly faded from collective memory.


Nobody credited the fool, of course, but little did she care. Remember, a fool’s credo includes “A fool isn’t in it for the prestige.” (It would have been nice if the fool had been allowed to keep her job as scribe in acknowledgement of her one usefool moment, but why that wasn’t so is a convoluted story involving microbes as metaphor, told here.)


Third and last part: How to be a fool (and what's in it for you)