Originally Posted by Mephibosheth
I shouldn't worry about that, awareness, not to worry at all...you are in excellent company...
In days gone by, the 'court jesters' of old, were also considered to be a little 'hair-brained' and 'crazy'. But everybody knew that though their apparent function was to entertain the palace court with singing, playing the flute or the fiddle or what have you, dancing and prancing around, acrobatics, telling jokes, narrating stories, juggling, and performing magic tricks, etc (...all in a comical fashion), their true role was to criticize and bring to light hidden things, and dispense wisdom and advice on political and other sensitive matters...all delivered in jocular fashion and accompanied by a hilarious comedic routine!
As such they often targeted influential figures of the court and other persons of high social standing marking them out for especial ridicule and public mockery. The monarch him/herself was not spared the sharp edge of the scathing tongue of the court jester; and thus it was not unusual for him to pick on a variety of the king's failings, either in his personal life or in respect of his style of the administration of his kingdom, and hang them out to dry while poking savage fun at them; all without subjecting the king to too much awkward embarrassment or unacceptable loss of face.
The same ill-advised words falling from the lips of another man would often be quickly followed by his being flung into a filthy dungeon corner; or worse: a short, quick, six-foot drop from the gallows. And in this regard, the court jester enjoyed immunity and impunity that no person considered to be rational and intelligent could possibly hope to be afforded; for the ramblings of the town idiot could always be laughed off and dismissed with the wave of the hand as the jibber-jabber of a fool and a buffoon...(that is, in public). But in private, his words took on the force of a fount of wisdom and were often considered to be 'divinely inspired'...
And in the same vein, I wonder, that though Dave may call you a dunderhead in the open; nevertheless, in secret, does he not also hesitate and harbor doubts as to whether or not beneath that fine, bright-red flannel coxcomb (so to speak) that you sport on the crown of your head, there does not, in fact, lie a person of fine mettle, sturdy character, and unsearchable depths and ways past finding out!
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