Tricksters of the World, Unite!

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Crazy wisdom, at its essence, is about tripping ourselves into seeing, hearing, and feeling the world with a different awareness. It offers everyone the chance to have accidents of enlightenment and transformation.

Holy fools and jesters through the ages have always known that the first step toward liberation and enlightenment is to escape from lives that are overgoverned by the ideals of efficiency, predictability, control, and rationality. The essential ingredients of being human are always upside down, mirror-imaged, and reversals of common sense. Do not trust anyone, for example, who says 'Trust me.' Crazy wisdom helps us question leaders who lazily invoke metaphors of patriotism, law, and duty to fight a war or lock up alleged troublemakers. Crazy wisdom lets us tune in to the sounds of unknown prophets who dare us to love our enemies, take care of the planet, and dance wildly in the streets.

Most cultures around the world have always valued the wild ones -- those who flirt during a solemn ceremony, laugh at a funeral, or weep at a joke. The ancient Chinese text known as the Tao Te Ching was onto this when it advised:

To remain whole, be twisted.
To become straight, let yourself be bent.
To become full, be hollow.

Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Jackie Mason, George Carlin, and Lily Tomlin, among others, have continued the tradition of teasing out the big truths that can never be heard from the sober voices of clergy, academics, pundits, and politicians.

Here are some of my own holy foolish ideas for sparking political, cultural, and spiritual change. I don't mean to suggest that you give up organizing rallies and get-out-the vote drives, but only that a refreshing new spirit can sail into all that you do in the world. Crazy ideas of your own will soon arise, and you can pass them on to others.

• Hang a photograph of George W. Bush over your dresser. Then for every person you meet who promises to vote for anyone but Bush, place a small sticker over the photo until his image has completely disappeared. Repeat with John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Gale Norton, and Dick Cheney until you feel optimistic about the election.
• Once a week, choose a heavily advertised product you already have in your home that is not essential to your existence. Move it to a spot where it looks completely out of place. For instance, you could put your hair dryer inside the refrigerator or hang a box of junk food over the fireplace. Think about how easy it could be to part with these consumerist items by recognizing their real lack of value.
• Write to your local library or literature teacher to ask which books are most likely to get banned if we end up with more narrow-minded Supreme Court justices. Publish this endangered-reading list in your local newspaper.
• Encourage (or even commission) local musicians and composers to write songs that pay tribute to the way local industries have polluted the environment. Send a tape of the songs to every public school teacher in the area.
• Organize a fund-raising campaign to annually appoint and support a local trickster. Teenagers and senior citizens might be particularly suited for the job.

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