Fool on the Hill

When the Beatles sang about The Fool on the Hill, they sang about a man that simply sat on a hill and watched life happening before him. Was he a fool for not actively participating in the world around him or was he brilliant in that he was able to remove himself in a way that allowed him to analyze and dissect and discern actions and ideas in which the rest of the world was too immersed?

In our current society, most of the proletariat is too busy reacting to the world- between current economic crises to environmental crises to never-ending wars and just daily life. We are busy working 2 jobs, running households and many of us are just barely holding our heads above water. We don’t have the luxury of the fool on the hill that got to sit and watch, some of us are lucky we have time to stop and pee during the day. It makes sense to “outsource” the responsibility of every citizen to participate in their government and monitor the legislators that that we hired in the hopes that they might be able to make our lives better. Our jobs are being done by people in other countries, our children are be being raised by babysitters and nannies, our homes are being cleaned by cleaning ladies, our meals are being cooked by cooks at restaurants and the choices affecting our lives are being made by other people. The question here then, is what part of our lives are WE living? Maybe we are no different than the fool on the hill, except that while he is “not living his life,” he is doing it consciously.

It’s kind of hard to see things clearly when one is “in the thick of ‘em” and we all know that hindsight is 20/20. One might think that we are at a disadvantage in that we cannot predict the future, per se, however, we do have the past upon which to gaze, and history is cyclical.

It’s very possible that the solutions to the problems of the present are actually nestled within the pages of the history books that are collecting dust in some cardboard box in the attic. So there is such thing as a Life’s Little Instruction Book? Maybe so.

“Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws. It is true, we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”


Those were words written by Thomas Jefferson, taken from an excerpt from “Notes on The State of Virginia” in 1781 and this excerpt can be accessed, among other places, at http://classicliberal.tripod.com/jefferson/vnotes.html.
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