Of all the bizarre things we celebrate in our society, April Fools is one of those I could never really get behind. It is such a strange practice, the idea of pranking someone. It lands somewhere between levity and embarrassment. At its worst, it hurts and shames people. At its best, it is like a form of magic – a sort of joy in being deceived. Finding the sweet spot where that is enjoyable, let alone valuable, has always been difficult for me.
I get all the arguments for foolishness. It is light and people bond around levity. It is meant to be fun, a jest. There is even the argument that this kind of jovial, good-natured fun brings people together.
Even if this has a place in society theoretically, I think it is pretty clear we don’t do this well operationally. And I think at least part of the problem is that we do not actually know the real differences between foolishness and wisdom. Perhaps laughing about that reality is the best we can do, a sort of insanity.
One Better
The issue starts at the end. We often mistake one upmanship with wisdom. We measure a person’s acumen by how well they can deceive others. How well they play the game over and against the people around them. Success by competition. Winning by comparison to others. This is the phenomena that makes us think celebrities, rich businessmen, or professional athletes somehow embody a greater wisdom than others. The proof, as we say, is in the pudding. They have won. Therefore they must be wise.
I went to a men’s retreat with our church a few years back. An ex-NBA player was a guest speaker and said the most basic of things. Work hard. Pray every day. And the guys at the conference talked about it as if the speaker had split the atom.
I think this is the heart of our perverse obsession with pranking. It feels like a little victory. We won over someone. We got the better of them. And, in a certain sense, that feels like wisdom. Maybe it is the difference between wit and wisdom. Wit is a bit of cleverness. That is not the same thing as being wise.
The real tragedy here is while we are running around trying to pull each other’s pants down, the real opportunities to experience and share wisdom elude us. We are trying very hard to be a clever fool, and we miss the chance to be wise.
Pursuing Wisdom
I spend a lot of my time trying to validate myself. I constantly feel as though I am on trial. Daily life is a proving ground. How can I prove my worth? How can I prove my strength? I ask myself: how can I prove I am enough?
Wisdom is difficult because, first and foremost, it requires a posture of learning. It requires listening. Exploring things for what they can teach. Wisdom is a collective. Something that works best as it is shared. I hoard my foolishness and try to prove I am the chief of fools. Wisdom requires something I do not want to do. An acknowledgment of inadequacy. A posture to love, to learn, to serve.
Wisdom might mean putting down the whoopie cushion and pursuing joy in more robust ways.
The Line
What is really disheartening in this pursuit is that the line between wisdom and foolishness is not very clear. Not always. I am sure whoopie cushions are not mutually exclusive to wisdom. I am sure there is nuance and things that I am missing.
It is complicated.
And in the complexity, we tend to revert back to what is easiest. What is simple. We adopt foolishness and name it as wisdom. It is not just about pranks. We might talk seriously about important things. We might even learn and regurgitate foolishness. The April Fools phenomena is not about pranks, really, but a general posture that struggles with the line between what it means to be wise and what it means to be a fool.
We restructure the narrative in our own image, defining for ourselves what constitutes wisdom. Biased by our own emotions and predispositions, we dress our foolishness up in wisdom clothing. A simple turn of phrase, a change of tone or language, or an abundance of confidence can cover over a lot of underlying uncertainty and insecurity. We can deceive even ourselves.
But this line between wisdom and folly is important. Vitally important. We need to do better.
