A pinch of Folly.

Observe with what providence Nature, mankind's mother, took care to scatter everywhere a pinch of Folly. She infused in man more passion than reason so that everything would be less sad, hard, ugly, flavorless, annoying. If mortals bewared from every relationship with Wisdom, old age would not exist. If only they could be more vain, merrier and more insane, they'd enjoy happy an ethernal youth. Life is none other than a game of Folly. The Heart is always right.

This passage is taken from the Praise of Folly, written by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. I read that essay several years ago, but recollecting it, gave me the cue for a reflection.

Everyone of us thinks of himself/herself as a rational person, that behind every action we do there is a reason, a logic, a well-thought motive. We've heard many times that our reason, our judgement, is indeed what discerns man from beasts, even this is argueable, but that doesn't want to be my point.

Just how many times in our lives have we done things despite knowing they would be unhealthy for ourselves? 

Sadly most of the times we resort to such stuffs to run away from despair, from sadness, from ourselves. We don't follow our head but our istincts because that is the easiest way, the simplest path, though harmful.

We can do so to escape from difficulties, but we rarely do so to pursue a goal, a dream, a love, something hard, something that seems unreachable. We bind our heart, we chain it, we mute it repeating relentlessly that what it says it's unreasonable. In truth we are just cowards, we're ready to discard wisdom only for our convenience, because we are lazy, lazy to build our own future. "Be actors of your own lives, not just spectators" used to repeat my teacher.

I am a person that at times thinks too much, many have told me that. But it often happens that despite how much I would think over and over something, my heart in the end wins over my reason and decides for me. Not always that is the "right" choice. But what exactly means to be right? Who decides what's right and what's not? I honestly don't know. But rather than being bound by the laws written by someone else, by "the common sense", I prefer to listen to my feelings.


There are times when things change depending on the eyes we watch them with. Take our past experiences, our memories, our story. Despite of how we felt when those events occurred, when we recollect them we can see them as good or as bitter according to *how* we want to remember them. I read somewhere that lucky and unlucky gamblers don't exist. A lucky gambler is someone who can forget more easily his losses than the unlucky. I think it's a little like that, it depends on how we want to look back at what happened.
Likewise, our positivity/negativity influences us on how we look at our present.
It's easier to point at something bad, that maybe it doesn't even exist, than recognize something good right in front of our eyes. We shouldn't think that everything in this world is against us, that everything others say is an attack.
It would be so much better to open the eyes and look at the hidden hints to what of good others want to tell us, it's not difficult, it's right there, it's only a matter of will.
Before thinking we are born alone and we'll die alone, let's keep in mind that to the world you may just be someone, but to someone you may be the whole world.

We should try to forget our reason at times, and overcome the limits we self-imposed to ourselves.
Afterall people call something "Impossible" till it's done. There is always someone who doesn't know that it's impossible and manages to do it.
You can be that someone, just taste that pinch of Folly everyone has inside.