Lesson 6: You Must be Willing to be a Fool to be a Master — Unearned Wisdom

The Call to Adventure

In mythological stories, there is the call to adventure. And in Biblical stories, the call to adventure happens to people who are in late age, and are imperfect, and have taken too long to leave their homes. The motif of these myths is always the same. It is better to go out into the world and explore opportunities than rot away at home.

Waiting for Godot is the situation that many 40-year-olds find themselves in. They protect themselves by refusing the call to adventure, but by doing so, they stunt their own development, they remain children. And even if one day the perfect opportunity does come along, they won’t have the ability to recognize it.

The Imperfect Ideal

This life pattern is called the will to stupidity by Nietzsche.

It is better do something badly than not to do it at all. It is better to be a fool at first, so that you can become a master. You first plan is never right, since most ideas are wrong, but then your glimmer of light shifts somewhere else as you approach it. You get somewhere, even if it is not exactly where you wanted to go, you have still made progress from where you were. And as you progress, the degree to which you overshoot or miss your mark decreases dramatically.

That is because you will start to get rid of your false impressions about the world, you will get rid of the excess baggage that is holding you down. But that is not enough, after this excess baggage is gone, you are not left with enlightenment, but you are left with nothingness in its place. And so, you continue your journey in the desert, continually. You will keep failing, there is no way around it. But by having an ideal to aim towards, you will continually improve.

A series of failures is not an indication that you have failed in your mission, it is an indication that your mission is difficult.

The Hell You Know

Take relationships, for example. Any relationship is both good and bad. If you were in a bad relationship, and it ended, then you are better off, but since there was also some good to it, you are not only free and happy. You are now burdened by feelings of loneliness.

But by moving forward towards your ideal, even if it is imperfect, it is better than staying in the “hell you know.” It is better than trapping yourself in a miserable situation, just because it has become comfortable for you. The only way to constantly improve your situation is to be willing to be a fool, to be willing to have foolish ideals, but to always move forward with faith and courage.

Originally published at https://unearnedwisdom.com on February 25, 2020.