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The Fool – A free man or a slave?

An example of daily life:


As I have already noted, The Fool (the rounded vessel filled with small, colorful balls) is continuously shaken. He rolls over and turns around due to external influences. Every external stimulus affects The Fool: certain weather can affect The Fool and makes him rejoice, angry or suffer. People affect The Fool and make him either happy or angry or love or hate or believe or belittle and so on. Every event in his life affects him.



The Fool

The Fool is a very successful person, both financially and socially. He has no concerns about his day-to-day existence. He is a very educated man and even has interest in science, philosophy and other essential subjects. People who know The Fool consider him wise, intelligent, pleasant and successful. So The Fool sees and regards himself as a citizen of the big world, and sometimes even considers himself a good person who loves to help and contribute to his fellow men. If we ask The Fool to define himself, he will say without hesitation that he is a free man!


This morning The Fool woke up with a headache and some particularly disturbing memories of a nightmare. The general feeling of The Fool today is so oppressive that he repeatedly entertains the thought of staying in bed. But eventually, with the help of his bladder, he gets up and fumbles to the bathroom. When he starts brushing his teeth, the brush falls off his hands, he lifts it off the floor and hits his head on a sink. The Fool utters a curse, and the negative feeling that he started cultivating in bed is growing stronger. An ice cube soothes the pain, and after checking in the mirror, The Fool is happy to discover that it didn’t leave a mark.


His mood improves a little, and he decides to go out to town and have some coffee at his favorite cafe. While leaving his house, he discovers that his neighbor has stolen the newspaper again. A moment later, he remembers that a free newspaper is being distributed in the cafe, so he relaxes again and leaves his house. Outside, a lovely weather awaits him, just as he likes it. He takes a breath and decides that walking will improve his mood. And indeed, after meeting some good acquaintances on his way to the cafe, his mood improves dramatically.


Down the road, The Fool sees a group of people and an ambulance. He walks closer and notices a man lying on the pavement. The Fool is certain that this is an accident. He feels uncomfortable when the injured person is put into the ambulance as thoughts of careless drivers fill his whole being. The wounded man reminds him of his good friend, who was killed in a similar car accident. The Fool begins to feel sadness and self-pity begin to dominate him. In a gloomy mood, he keeps walking to the cafe and orders breakfast. For some reason, the meal and the coffee are not tasty at all this morning, and he completely forgot about the newspaper.


From the corner of his eye, he notices two lady friends sitting not far from his desk. One of them keeps glancing at him and giggling at him. She turns to her friend and says, in a way that her words are heard very well, “He’s very charming.”


After The Fool joins their desk and receives the phone number of one of them, his mood is significantly improved. He no longer remembers the accident and his late friend. Even the food is delicious and after the women separate from him and leave the cafe, he cannot erase the smile from his face.


He once again recalls newspaper he wanted so much to read this morning, and in the sports section, he reads that his favorite team had defeated their rivals. Now The Fool is sure he never had such a good morning!


I can carry on describing the morning of our free friend, but I think that we can stop here and realize that our Fool is far from being a free person and that he indeed gets constantly shaken, rolled and turned around due to external influences/stimuli. All of his reactions to those external stimuli, whether thoughts, feelings, sensations actions, imagination, identification and so on, are the same small, colorful balls that respond to the shaking.

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