**** Note: most of this post is my own opinion. If you want to cite it, please check other sources too. ****

The Fool is the very first card (if we go by the Rider-Waite-Smith system). The number given to this card is 0, which, put simply, means nothing, empty.

Usually when The Fool comes up, lots of meanings rush into your head: daring to start, carelessness, being unpredictable. And the picture on the card really does show that kind of behavior (who keeps walking when they’re standing at the edge of a cliff?).

But after studying the cards for a while, I started to think of a lot more things about this card.

Let’s start with the number 0.

What is 0? We probably don’t need math to know that 0 is nothing, no value, empty. As an object, it might be an empty box, a blank sheet of paper or an empty glass, anything that looks bare, with nothing in it for us to see. The Fool is a bit like that: there’s nothing about him you can touch. No sense of self, no feelings, no thoughts, nothing at all….

No sense of self

The Fool drifts a lot. He doesn’t even know what he is or what he wants to be. He has no inspiration and no goals. He just drifts along, wandering on and on, like in the picture.

No feelings

The Fool doesn’t pay much attention to anyone. Maybe that’s because he doesn’t know why he should. So he doesn’t share much feeling with anyone, and his feelings are fairly empty.

No thoughts

The Fool hardly thinks about anything, whether or not it’s something he should think about. He doesn’t even think about whether he’s in danger or taking a risk.

Nothing solid

Even when it comes to belongings, The Fool has almost nothing. The more you look, the more he seems to be someone with nothing at all, from his soul to his possessions. He really is an empty person.

But even though The Fool is a complete 0, so much so that you wonder whether he has anything in his life at all (hahaha), think about 0 again. If you remember, 0 has something special that other numbers don’t: whatever you add to it, you get that same thing back, like 1+0=1. Or when you put something in an empty space, where there was nothing, now there’s an object, something that exists.

So as well as reading The Fool as someone with nothing, we can also read him as someone who is ready to be, ready to feel, ready to think and ready to have anything, because he starts from nothing at all. So whenever The Fool receives something, he becomes it straight away, with no bias mixed in. For example, if we tell The Fool he’s a good person, he’ll think he really is a good person.

But The Fool is ready to be anything not because he has everything. It’s because he has nothing at all that he can take everything in (he doesn’t even have an opinion on whether what he takes in is good or bad, haha).

So what do you do when you turn over The Fool? This card can advise and warn at the same time. It may advise you not to overthink, to keep yourself open and to let go a little. Or it may warn you that right now you’re being careless, too careless, whether in your thinking, your feelings or even your money.

So is The Fool a fool? Maybe not. A madman? Hard to say. What’s certain is that he isn’t anything at all, not even himself. It’s not a bad card, but it’s not so good that you should copy it either.

There’s actually a lot more in my head about The Fool, especially from what I’ve read in Waite’s book and the Golden Dawn. If I remember it, I’ll carry on in Part 2.