M.A.G.I.C.’s Annual April Fools Party
Quite fittingly, the crowning event every year for M.A.G.I.C. was the Annual April Fool’s Party — For those international friends who might not be familiar with April Fools, the following background piece was written.
ALL FOOLS DAY : CELEBRATING THE FOOL
by David Sutton
“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the years.” —Mark Twain
April First or April Fools Day gives us an opportunity to celebrate Fools, something with which I take great delight. Its history is rather imprecise and once I recount what I know of it, I would like to provide a personal perspective.
Unlike most of the other nonfoolish holidays, the history of April Fool’s Day, sometimes called All Fool’s Day, is not totally clear. There really wasn’t a “first April Fool’s Day” that can be pinpointed on the calendar. Some believe it sort of evolved simultaneously in several cultures at the same time, from celebrations involving the emergence from the doldrums of winter and the first day of spring.
The closet point in time that can be identified as the beginning of this tradition was in 1582, in France. Prior to that year, the new year was celebrated for eight days beginning on March 25th. The celebration culminated on April 1st. With the reform of the calendar under Charles IX, the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and New Year’s Day was moved to January 1st.
However, communications being what they were in those days, many people did not learn of this change for many years. Others, the more obstinate crowd, refused to accept the new calendar and continued to celebrate the new year on April 1. These ‘backward folk’ were labeled as “fools” by the general populace. They were subject to much ridicule, were often sent on “fools errands,” invitations to non-existent parties and were made the butt of other practical jokes.
This harassment evolved, over time, into a tradition of prank-playing on the first day of April. The tradition eventually spread to England and Scotland in the eighteenth century. It was later introduced to the American colonies of both the English and the French. April Fool’s Day thus developed into an international funfest, so to speak, with the different nationalities specializing in their own brand of humor at the expense of their friends and families.
Practical jokes are common practices on April fool’s Day. Sometimes, elaborate practical jokes are played on friends or relatives that last the entire day. The news media even gets involved. For instance, a British short film once shown on April Fool’s Day was a fairly detailed documentary about “spaghetti farmers” and how they harvest their crop from the spaghetti trees.
April Fool’s Day is a “for-fun-only” observance. Nobody is expected to buy gifts or to take their “significant other” out to eat in a fancy restaurant. Nobody gets off work or school. It’s simply a fun little holiday, but a holiday on which one must remain forever vigilant, for he may be the next ‘April Fool.”
OK, So much for the official version – Here is mine!
April Fool’s is a Day to celebrate the Fool in us all (and the more the better). There is too much ‘non-foolish’ behavior going around (political intrigue, economic manipulation and corporate dominance) and we need any opportunity we can find to change that. We are too serious, we don’t’ play enough, we are afraid to take risks/afraid of failing; we are afraid of being ourselves.
To me the Fool is a sort of a cultural policeman, representing a collective conscience. It is that part in each of us that knows what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ or really foolish but is afraid to say it.
I have this painting of Lao-tzu riding backwards on an ox in my room. I have just learned that early Taoist described self-mastery as “riding the ox.” Lao-tzu was sometimes depicted riding his ox backwards, as a sacred fool, attempting to awaken the world to the Way.
As Lao-tzu, himself put it:
“Everyone says that my way of life is the way of a simpleton.
Being largely the way of a simpleton is what makes it worthwhile.
If it were not the way of a simpleton
It would long ago have been worthless.”
—(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 67)
I have had the propensity for most of my life for “playing the fool”–for being the “trickster.” I can now add this mindful silliness to my current Taoist practice of the “celestial knight.”
So what is a Fool? Great fools are a kind of hero. Some say, they are those that are merely uncontaminated by what for the mainstream is “common sense.” Others say, to be a fool is being afflicted with extraordinary sanity.
We learn a lot about the fool from Shakespeare. Anyone can be a tragic hero. All you have to do is be destroyed by the forces of fate, fortune, and bad timing. In life, as in theater, however, pulling off a happy ending takes skill, perseverance, and a certain amount of dumb luck. The fool is the ideal character to resolve conflicts, for a true fool, through intentional or unintentional humor, dissolves normal structures and opens way for new solutions. No body showed the power of the fool better than Shakespeare and how he can bring forth a new order out of what could have ended in tragedy.
Whether its Dogberry of “Much Ado About Nothing” (one of the most stupid characters in the history of literature), Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, or Charlie Chaplin we see that fortune loves the fool. Somehow in spite of life’s attempts to take him out through car crashes, train wrecks; collapsing houses, hurricanes and other forces of nature, the fool endures with stubborn resilience. Often he is unaware that anything unusual is happening.
The fools show us that our carefully constructed plans, our identities, our notions of reality are fragile concepts. A larger more perfect order lies beneath the surface chaos. The fool resolves it all by simply being what he is. Bottom the Weaver in “Midsummer Night’s Dream” brings about a reconciliation of powerful forces by simply being his asinine self.
The difference between Lao-Tzu’s simpleton and these other fools and ourselves is one of awareness, of a most simple “naturalness.” Having realized Tao, perfect presence is what the fool actually is and the fool is a gift given to the world to reflect back the absurdity of the life we live. He or she will offend the self-righteous, outrage the worldly-wise, and shock those who take themselves too seriously. Without the simpleton we complacently sleep on. Lao-tzu states forcefully:
“When superior persons learn of the Tao, they practice it with ardor. When mediocre persons learn of the Tao, it leaves them indifferent. When inferior persons learn of the Tao, they laugh loudly. If they did not laugh, it would not be worthy of being the Tao.” —(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 41)
The fool is a figure of reversal, of rules cast aside and the normal order of things turned upside down. This is apparent in fairy tales where the hero is a fool. Jack’s sale of his cow for a handful of beans should have been a horrible swindle, but instead it makes his fortune. The boy with the Golden Goose succeeds in making the king’s daughter laugh, thus winning her hand, precisely because he had set out to do nothing of the sort. Shakespeare’s fools tell pointed truths that nobody else would dare speak in the king’s presence. And Holy Fools of many faiths, disdain what others hold precious (money, reputation, comfort). The Lord of the Rings turns hero-tale conventions on their head, instead of going to find a treasure, the Hobbit fool-heroes set forth to get rid of one.
If a natural fool is not present, a “professional fool” is created—one who makes his income from standing on the sidelines taking shots at the powers that be and their pretensions. I think the modern day comic serves this purpose, today. And although I never made a living at it, this is what I felt like for most of my ‘professional” career.
It is easy to see why we have a deeply divided attitude towards the fool: we love him even as we are stung by what he reveals in us. The ambivalence goes as far as the question of our own identity. On the one hand, we suffer to know who we are; on the other, we don’t want to hear our ways are foolish.
A fool’s lesson is a hard one because it is about the ego. To meet the ego squarely, we must not be taken by it. Most of us are fooled most of the time by our belief that we are the ego and nothing more. The ego’s folly is revealed by the mirror the fool holds up to human nature. It would seem, though that to speak of this human folly takes an art practiced by far too few. This is why we need April Fool’s Day and other opportunities like it to ‘legitimately’ act out our true playful nature.
The converse of this – the overly serious denial of this part of us, I believe, is VERY DANEROUS. It is the source of so much of the world’s confusion and tension, of individual’s unfilled expectations and the fundamental universal angst we all experience. We are all hiding from what we really are.
What we are talking about here is “authenticity,” what Gary Zukav, in his “Seat of the Soul,” calls the search for your authentic self – your authentic foolish, loveable self.
April Fools and other times like it (I just attended a Fasching party last weekend that qualifies) serve as occasions for us to let go, be in the moment and experience the ‘natural’ fool within us all.
David Sutton is the host of M.A.G.I.C (Multicultural Activities Generating International Community), a dancing fool savoring every moment as he lives it in Shanghai and Sanya. M.A.G.I.C’s Annual April Fool’s celebration will be held on All Fools Day (April 1st) at 7:00 pm at Fat Daddy’s, No. 1 Villa, Lan Hai Hua Yuan, Sanya Wan Lu., phone: 8839-1046.
You can contact David Sutton friendsofsanya@hotmail.com or 133-0767-1390.
Photos of some of the most memorable Fool’s Celebrations will soon be posted. (album)