The story is told of a frustrated psychiatrist trying to convince his patient that the patient wasn’t dead.  “But I am dead,” the patient would vehemently protest.  “No you’re not,” the doctor would retort.

Finally one day the doctor had a brilliant idea.  He asked the patient, “Do dead men bleed?”  The patient confidently reported, “No of course not . . . dead men don’t bleed.”  Without warning the doctor reached over and pricked the patient’s finger with a needle and blood immediately came out of the wound.

The patient calmly replied, “Well what do you know?  Dead men do bleed.”

The ancient text of the Bible calls them foolish people (aka “fools”), and to be sure in spite of what political correctness might tell us they are still among us.  They are contrasted in the ancient book of Proverbs from the Bible with the “wise” folks who are always trying to learn wisdom (i.e. those truths that have stood the test of time from generation to generation).  “You cannot separate fools from their foolishness even though you grind them like grain with mortar and pestle” is how one proverb says it.  “Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions” is how it is stated in another proverb.  Or as it has also been said, “You can’t reason someone out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.”

Knowing of their existence, the leader’s discernment recognizes one and makes sure that the fool does not enter the immediate circle of the leader’s confidantes.

Categories: Learning

Tags: learning