Joseph Lewis D’Silva
Really, fools lack common sense. They live on foolishness. Their behavior can be explained with fables, Biblical examples and experiences. But it is not possible to throw light on all that in this column for want of space. I have only selected a few here below.
A simple fool is one who believes in anything and does everything what people say, as this story demonstrates in detail: a Miller and his son went to sell an Ass. On the way, a woman said, “What foolishness to walk, when they might as well ride.” So, the Miller made the boy sit on the Donkey. A Merchant, passing by said, “Respect old age, young man! Get down and let the old man ride.” The boy dismounted and the Miller sat on the Ass. Then, some women said, “Look at the old fool, perched on the Ass and making the poor boy run besides him.” The Miller, told his son to climb behind him. Then a loud shout went up form a group of people on the road: “What a crime, to load a poor dumb beast with their weight. They will break its back. They are fit to carry the Ass.” So, they carried the donkey on the pole. The Ass brayed and kicked and broke the rope that tied him and the donkey fell in the river while crossing a bridge. The Miller lost his Ass because he was a fool to act according to what others say.
The most dangerous type of fool is a firm fool. He makes his own rule and follows it too. He is his own god. Lucifer, the prince of fools chose to rebel against God and to assert his will over God’s (Isa. 14:12-15).
An experience of a villager shows how things get fixed in the silly fool’s mind. In a village, a priest gave a sermon on charity. In brief it went like this: “Brethren … He who gives to the poor will lack nothing …..” On hearing this, a woman gave to the poor all that she had and she herself turned a pauper. Some villagers said, “This is foolish charity, for God said, — Love your neighbor as yourself. In this incident, the woman did not show love for herself by keeping what she needed. She gave her money even to the able-bodied poor, which is a sin because it makes the able-bodied poor to live lazily, on charity and die in charity.”
The folly of a fool is deep-seated. No matter how hard one strives to rid the fool of his folly, such efforts end in failure. A fool and his folly are seemingly inseparable. Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him (Pr.27:22). Anger of a fool causes more damage to self than to others like the Farmer and the Fox in Aesop’s Fables.
The Book of Proverbs in The Old Testament of the Bible displays foolishness in others and also in a greater measure of it in oneself. The causes of Folly is because the fool trusts his own heart, fellow fools and cheaters. Fool feels that he and other fools are right in his eyes. The fool cannot even learn from his own mistakes. Given an opportunity, he repeats his folly like a dog that returns to its vomit. (Pr. 26:11).
