I admit it: I have been a fool. Many will tell you that this is still an ongoing process, but we seldom can see in front of our noises, especially if we are fools. For this, then, I can only turn to look at the past, and at something I said many times and almost, kinda believed. It involves my mostly, but not entirely-joking idea about what my eternal paradise would look like. Here it is in a nutshell: In paradise, I would be able to choose my environment daily, be it the Rocky Mountains in the spring or a beautiful Mexican off-tourist beach; I would hike or swim or boat or whatever was appropriate all day until near exhaustion (which wouldn’t last long, for I would also be eternally young and in great shape), whereby I would come back to base – I don’t know, maybe a seaside hotel or even an active youth hostel – to drink my fill of the most delicious of cold beers. On tap, mind you, and with never a hangover or health problem after. All this would be done with friends and great music. Throw in some beautiful women who would drop by at just the right moments, and that’s just about it. Rinse and repeat. Fred’s paradise.
Of course it’s a fool’s paradise. This might be great for a week or two, but for eternity? Although I could change the environment, from friends to locations to types of beer and women, this would wear thin at a certain point. I know this because some of the youthful idle rich do live this way, and they become jaded. They age and become sick as well, which I wouldn’t, but they usually come to despise life after too much of this, long before old age. I know this not only from the National Enquirer headlines made to make us feel superior to the idle rich (who we envy), but from the aristocrats of the past who are well known to history. They, too, could not be satisfied with frivolity forever. Instead, they fought duels to the death over silly slights of pride or over women that they might not even really care for, or they made up wars or quests or, in the more recent past, they became useful in government or ran big businesses or banks. In other words, they messed up their fool’s paradise with problems and headaches because they needed much more than the simple fulfillment of basic needs and pleasures. They needed, and still need, the hardship of real challenge. They needed something to make them feel needed, something that made them feel as if they were going places. Advancing. Becoming more than what they were.
And even with this, like Richard Corey from the poem of the same name, they sometimes blew their brains out at a rate beyond that of the common proletariat. Imagine that.
We know why, without deep analysis: if the hardships they took on did not involve real skin in the game, as Pres. Obama used to say, than it still was a fool’s paradise. That is, if the idle rich person was involved in a business whose success was not pivotal to the continuation of his high income and status, then it still really didn’t count for much. It was still just a game, like day - hiking in the Rockies. It still did not demand deep, genuine attention, which, if successful, gives a deep, genuine feeling of being relevant, of counting for something and somehow going somewhere.
In America and the developed world (as they now call it) we are offered fool’s paradise’s all the time. Here, each time we begin the long and torturous journey towards a presidential election, we are offered promises of eternal security, of the fulfillment of all our needs so that we might never have to worry again. Housing, food, education, healthcare, childcare, self-esteem counseling, you name it and you will find contenders for the ultimate power offering us everything they think WE think will make us happy. But it is hard to be a fool all the time, regardless of one’s political inclinations; after a while many of us wise up to politician’s promises; after a while many of us learn that what is promised comes at a tremendous price. We learn not only that the cost in dollars might be beyond the practical, but that our security will also cost us our freedom. We learn that, if we put our well-being in someone else’s pocket, sooner or later that other person will yank the chain that he has hidden there. There we find a true loss of self-esteem. There we find that the more we are given, the more we pay, one way or another.
To me, though (fool that I am), this is a minor problem compared to the real source of our desire to live, which is our need to be going someplace, to have a goal. The rich man with no goal is an unhappy rich man, just as the poor man or anyone else is, and the goal has to have real skin in the game for us. A few live this out in Technicolor: the gambler, the mountain climber, the car racer, the professional soldier. Few of us go that far in this world, but it doesn’t matter, for even the man who lives on the edge still is looking over it at nothing, at a chasm that falls off into darkness. For him, the meaning of life is, basically, not to lose it; beyond that, he knows nothing. For him, then, he has to keep living on the edge so that he will not think of the true meaning of what it is that is over the edge – and why he is so afraid of it.
For the rest of us, our fool’s paradise is found in being fooled into caring too much about the things that sit before us well before the edge. The problem with being promised everything is that we are kept focused on these things as our ultimate goal. As we know - or should know - from world history, the idea that society will provision us with everything we need, and in a just and fully equal society at that, is a fool’s dream. More importantly, we should also know that even if these goals were obtainable, they would still not be fully worthy goals; they would still not be worthy of our hearts and souls. This might be hard for those enmeshed in poverty to understand, but the rich have long understood this. And, more importantly, so have our most gifted poor, the saints and prophets who have brought us a better vision of the true ultimate goal for us all.
This brings us to that precipice that the adrenaline junkies so desperately seek, but with equal desperation try to skirt. Theirs’s does not bring them or any of us any further. Neither does my fool’s paradise of unrelenting youth and pleasure, which would turn into a curse, not within years, but within months. Nor does a perfect society, were it possible. To keep the latter as an ultimate goal, even as an unobtainable ideal, then, is as foolish as my dream of a never-ending summer. It can be a side-goal, but should never dominate the one true goal. This goal lies beyond the abyss. It will never bore us, and its fulfillment can not only satisfy us, but fill us beyond what we now can possibly know. The other stuff, when brought to comparison, seems like a child’s toy – something desired at an early stage of development, but not even remotely satisfying to the mature person.
The problem is that many people cannot see into the abyss. Part of this is the due to the mystery of grace, but much or most of it is due to the diversion offered by any-given fool’s paradise, ranging from child’s toys to great riches to the Marxist society. Which in a way is odd. While it is true that few of us are given a full vision of what lies beyond the abyss, just as few of us are given or earn or will ever receive vast riches. More so, NO ONE has ever achieved a paradise based on dialectical materialism or any other fully man-made social scheme. And yet many still believe in those very same fool’s paradises. Many believe, then, that these goals are more real and thus more worthy than the ultimate goal of cosmic union, even though the greatest, most authentic and self-sacrificing people throughout time have experienced it, have told us of it, have sworn by it and have often died for it. They have done this for no profit or power, but only to help us find the destiny that we truly desire whether we know it or not. And yet they have often been called the worst of fools by people who have lived for nothing but the fool’s paradise of self-aggrandizement or for nothing at all.
Sure I admit it; I would still like my personal paradise. However, this is what is often called a vacation, as in “vacant”, rather than an ultimate goal. For an ultimate goal, we need something that fills all the vacant spaces. We know where to find it, although it requires the most difficult route to follow of all. But of course it must. Even the idle rich learn that the more they are challenged, the better life is; and even fools like me know that sooner or later the vacation has to end, and we have to get serious about filling in the vacuum that still remains after the fool’s paradise is left behind as nothing but a dream of a distant memory.
I admit it: I have been a fool. Many will tell you that this is still an ongoing process, but we seldom can see in front of our noises, especially if we are fools. For this, then, I can only turn to look at the past, and at something I said many times and almost, kinda believed. It involves my mostly, but not entirely-joking idea about what my eternal paradise would look like. Here it is in a nutshell: In paradise, I would be able to choose my environment daily, be it the Rocky Mountains in the spring or a beautiful Mexican off-tourist beach; I would hike or swim or boat or whatever was appropriate all day until near exhaustion (which wouldn’t last long, for I would also be eternally young and in great shape), whereby I would come back to base – I don’t know, maybe a seaside hotel or even an active youth hostel – to drink my fill of the most delicious of cold beers. On tap, mind you, and with never a hangover or health problem after. All this would be done with friends and great music. Throw in some beautiful women who would drop by at just the right moments, and that’s just about it. Rinse and repeat. Fred’s paradise.
Of course it’s a fool’s paradise. This might be great for a week or two, but for eternity? Although I could change the environment, from friends to locations to types of beer and women, this would wear thin at a certain point. I know this because some of the youthful idle rich do live this way, and they become jaded. They age and become sick as well, which I wouldn’t, but they usually come to despise life after too much of this, long before old age. I know this not only from the National Enquirer headlines made to make us feel superior to the idle rich (who we envy), but from the aristocrats of the past who are well known to history. They, too, could not be satisfied with frivolity forever. Instead, they fought duels to the death over silly slights of pride or over women that they might not even really care for, or they made up wars or quests or, in the more recent past, they became useful in government or ran big businesses or banks. In other words, they messed up their fool’s paradise with problems and headaches because they needed much more than the simple fulfillment of basic needs and pleasures. They needed, and still need, the hardship of real challenge. They needed something to make them feel needed, something that made them feel as if they were going places. Advancing. Becoming more than what they were.
And even with this, like Richard Corey from the poem of the same name, they sometimes blew their brains out at a rate beyond that of the common proletariat. Imagine that.
We know why, without deep analysis: if the hardships they took on did not involve real skin in the game, as Pres. Obama used to say, than it still was a fool’s paradise. That is, if the idle rich person was involved in a business whose success was not pivotal to the continuation of his high income and status, then it still really didn’t count for much. It was still just a game, like day - hiking in the Rockies. It still did not demand deep, genuine attention, which, if successful, gives a deep, genuine feeling of being relevant, of counting for something and somehow going somewhere.
In America and the developed world (as they now call it) we are offered fool’s paradise’s all the time. Here, each time we begin the long and torturous journey towards a presidential election, we are offered promises of eternal security, of the fulfillment of all our needs so that we might never have to worry again. Housing, food, education, healthcare, childcare, self-esteem counseling, you name it and you will find contenders for the ultimate power offering us everything they think WE think will make us happy. But it is hard to be a fool all the time, regardless of one’s political inclinations; after a while many of us wise up to politician’s promises; after a while many of us learn that what is promised comes at a tremendous price. We learn not only that the cost in dollars might be beyond the practical, but that our security will also cost us our freedom. We learn that, if we put our well-being in someone else’s pocket, sooner or later that other person will yank the chain that he has hidden there. There we find a true loss of self-esteem. There we find that the more we are given, the more we pay, one way or another.
To me, though (fool that I am), this is a minor problem compared to the real source of our desire to live, which is our need to be going someplace, to have a goal. The rich man with no goal is an unhappy rich man, just as the poor man or anyone else is, and the goal has to have real skin in the game for us. A few live this out in Technicolor: the gambler, the mountain climber, the car racer, the professional soldier. Few of us go that far in this world, but it doesn’t matter, for even the man who lives on the edge still is looking over it at nothing, at a chasm that falls off into darkness. For him, the meaning of life is, basically, not to lose it; beyond that, he knows nothing. For him, then, he has to keep living on the edge so that he will not think of the true meaning of what it is that is over the edge – and why he is so afraid of it.
For the rest of us, our fool’s paradise is found in being fooled into caring too much about the things that sit before us well before the edge. The problem with being promised everything is that we are kept focused on these things as our ultimate goal. As we know - or should know - from world history, the idea that society will provision us with everything we need, and in a just and fully equal society at that, is a fool’s dream. More importantly, we should also know that even if these goals were obtainable, they would still not be fully worthy goals; they would still not be worthy of our hearts and souls. This might be hard for those enmeshed in poverty to understand, but the rich have long understood this. And, more importantly, so have our most gifted poor, the saints and prophets who have brought us a better vision of the true ultimate goal for us all.
This brings us to that precipice that the adrenaline junkies so desperately seek, but with equal desperation try to skirt. Theirs’s does not bring them or any of us any further. Neither does my fool’s paradise of unrelenting youth and pleasure, which would turn into a curse, not within years, but within months. Nor does a perfect society, were it possible. To keep the latter as an ultimate goal, even as an unobtainable ideal, then, is as foolish as my dream of a never-ending summer. It can be a side-goal, but should never dominate the one true goal. This goal lies beyond the abyss. It will never bore us, and its fulfillment can not only satisfy us, but fill us beyond what we now can possibly know. The other stuff, when brought to comparison, seems like a child’s toy – something desired at an early stage of development, but not even remotely satisfying to the mature person.
The problem is that many people cannot see into the abyss. Part of this is the due to the mystery of grace, but much or most of it is due to the diversion offered by any-given fool’s paradise, ranging from child’s toys to great riches to the Marxist society. Which in a way is odd. While it is true that few of us are given a full vision of what lies beyond the abyss, just as few of us are given or earn or will ever receive vast riches. More so, NO ONE has ever achieved a paradise based on dialectical materialism or any other fully man-made social scheme. And yet many still believe in those very same fool’s paradises. Many believe, then, that these goals are more real and thus more worthy than the ultimate goal of cosmic union, even though the greatest, most authentic and self-sacrificing people throughout time have experienced it, have told us of it, have sworn by it and have often died for it. They have done this for no profit or power, but only to help us find the destiny that we truly desire whether we know it or not. And yet they have often been called the worst of fools by people who have lived for nothing but the fool’s paradise of self-aggrandizement or for nothing at all.
Sure I admit it; I would still like my personal paradise. However, this is what is often called a vacation, as in “vacant”, rather than an ultimate goal. For an ultimate goal, we need something that fills all the vacant spaces. We know where to find it, although it requires the most difficult route to follow of all. But of course it must. Even the idle rich learn that the more they are challenged, the better life is; and even fools like me know that sooner or later the vacation has to end, and we have to get serious about filling in the vacuum that still remains after the fool’s paradise is left behind as nothing but a dream of a distant memory.
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