The Fool

In his journey, The Fool can reach his destination – The World.

At the beginning of the journey, The Fool is a multiplicity of different and fake ‘I’s’, that constantly changing.

At the end of the journey, The Fool becomes one true and permanent ‘I’…

Imagine that humans are made up of a hollow, rounded vessel filled with many colored balls. For that matter, let’s say we look at a particular person, such as our protagonist, The Fool, who opens the Major Arcana. The rounded and hollow vessel of The Fool, due to external influences, is continuously shaken, rolling, turning and rattling. Its inner balls too, due to the constant motion of the rounded vessel, mingle and change their place nonstop. Each one of those colored balls is confident that he is the real Fool. Each of these balls calls itself “I.”

The colored balls are not aware of each other. As far as they are concerned, each one is the only one inside the rounded vessel. Each time any of them finds himself above all the other balls due to shaking, it’s voice is heard. The voice and the ball are always connected to one of The Fool’s functions: the instinctive, the moving, the intellectual, and the emotional. That is the sensations, movements, thoughts, and feelings of The Fool. The Fool can most of the time hear only the words of that one ball which is above the other balls. Sometimes he can pick up the words of the other balls in the top layer, in a blurry way.

The Fool is not aware that every few seconds the balls change their place, and the upper ball loses its place and position to an entirely different ball. The Fool is confident that he is one, whole, and unaware of the multiplicity within him. In fact, every few seconds, another ball grabs the top position and makes its voice. Sometimes the replacement ball is so different from its predecessor that it seems to be two separate people.

If The Fool were aware that thousands of voices speak from his mouth, he would have been frightened, shaken, and even lost his sanity. Therefore, a built-in mechanism is active in The Fool, to make sure to hide it from his eyes, so that ultimately everything seems and sounds connected and without contradictions.

“Such as making it their business to oversee human actions, do not find themselves in anything so much perplexed as to reconcile them and bring them into the world’s eye with the same lustre and reputation; for they commonly so strangely contradict one another that it seems impossible they should proceed from one and the same person.”

“We are all framed of flaps and patches and of so shapeless and diverse a contexture that every piece and every moment playeth his part. And there is as much difference found between us and our selves as there is between ourselves and other.”

Michel de Montaigne