the Fool card is a failure tolerance mascot

a divine beginning through "falling" and... failing?

In our ongoing series about Failure Tolerance as a Magnetic Practice, we’ve created a few conceptual door knobs to expanding your capacity to fail.

Today, we actually open a door — or more like, we open a door that leads to a hallway with a series of more conceptual door knobs to spin — to The Tarot's Fool card as a spiritual introduction to failure tolerance. (Zero is the hero, actually)

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Oh, The Fool, Tarot Card No. 0¹, how I love thee…

The Major Arcana is often called the Fool’s Journey. In the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, The Fool is literally about to walk off a cliff with his knapsack, a cunty feather in his cap, a yappy lil dog, a singular rose, and The Audacity. That DIVA.

The Fool tarot card is superficially representative of the start of the adventure.

It’s easy to see this card crop up and immediately read it as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed beginner with enough enthusiasm and naiveté to buy a fake elevator pass² on the first day of school.

And, sure, that wouldn’t be wrong.

But there’s more to it.

While the Fool is definitely meant to be foolish (literally duh), I think a critical element is the embrace of folly. From our perspective, they stand at the edge of the cliff and yet still move forward without seeming to care about the consequences.

It’s easy to assume the Fool does this because they’re … a lil’ stupid? Reckless? Scrolling Tiktok instead of paying attention?

But what if the Fool sees something different from their vantage point — what looks like a death-defying ledge to the outside viewer is perhaps, just a small not-so-dangerous step.

To the Fool, consequences don’t even exist!

Because the Fool realizes that consequences aren’t a punishment if you zoom out enough and can see more of the big picture.

My first instinct when thinking about increasing my failure tolerance is to imagine some arduous process like training for a triathlon or Black Friday shopping in the early aughts. You need stamina, grit, and a level of intensity that keeps your “eye on the prize” so that any failure feels insignificant. (As I type this out, it feels very capitalist manosphere David Goggins-esque lol… makes sense it doesn’t work).

In reality, failure tolerance is about being willing to play the fool. To move through the world without thinking 12 steps ahead. To act like it will all work out. To get a little silly/weird/freaky with it and not worry what onlookers might think.

Failure tolerance is not a muscle you build by clenching your teeth, it’s one you get from playing, laughing, taking a leap of faith and falling, only to get back up and take another one.

With that, here are some more Fool-adjacent portals for you to explore…

IN THE FOOL-ISH ETHER

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Eliot

📚 READ Clown School

The social equivalent to playing dead is to put forward a façade – what Winnicott termed a ‘false self’, built around manners and protocol as opposed to spontaneous expression – that flies beneath the radar in order to ensure the survival of the true self. It’s a kind of psychological slouching based on the belief that whatever stands out is dangerous: the tallest sunflower gets snipped.

The clown is different. The clown gets up before an audience and risks letting whatever is inside seep out

📝 GUIDE Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Fool’s Journey 🤝 Hero’s Journey. 0 is literally the hero.

🔎 EXPLORE A gallery of tarot Fools

this AOL one is a personal fave of mine

📚 READ Wild Saints and Holy Fools

early Christians were always on some wild bullshit but kinda ~obsessed~ with Simeon embracing what can only be described as “hoe scaring behavior.”

🔎 EXPLORE Are.na Board: path of play

To embrace the fool, you have to suspend disbelief and what better way to do that than to play?

IT AIN'T THAT DEEP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I leave you with this:

Resources and Links:

• 📩 Connect with host ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michelle Pellizzon-Lipsitz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠team Holisticism⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• Sign up for the North Node waitlist here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• Inquire about 1:1 work with Michelle here

• Holisticism Resources 4 u:

  • Ruthless Clarity — an 8-week email course designed to help you achieve crystal-clear certainty about your goals, desires, and energy allocation

  • How to Begin: A Project Planning Class — a 90-m on-demand class that teaches you exactly how to sketch a effervescent project plan that'll fill you with glee and inspiration and instantly banish procrastination and overwhelm, so your brilliant ideas can finally come to life.

  • The Subconscious Audit — an 11-day diagnostic framework that helps you identify what's holding you back and making you *feel* blocked. Because you're never actually blocked

  • The New Age Playbook for Spellbinding, Can’t-Stop-Reading Copy — a 35-page downloadable workbook to take your writing from blah to bingeable

1. or 22, if you’re a Matrix of Destiny head

2. tbt to THAT Lizzie McGuire ep