She was foolish to have ever gone out with him. He was foolish to not have worked hard for his exam. She was foolish to think she could get away with it. It all seems to be a verdict made in hindsight isn’t it? You would not do it if you knew that it was a foolish thing to do from the start, would you? Hindsight is twenty-twenty after all. Wonder what JK Rowling thinks now. Was she foolish to have sent out such a tweet? If she could go back in time, what would she do? 

There are only two fears that humans are born with. The fear of Loud Noise and the fear of falling. But what each and everyone of us develop quickly and retain forever is “The fear of looking foolish”. It drives each and every decision from what we aspire to be to what we voice our opinions about. It drives herd mentality, curbs creativity and is many times the only reason why we hesitate to pursue a thought or an act. There is safety in everybody being foolish together. If you alone were foolish… ‘What will people say’.

Sir William Preece, engineer-in-chief of the British Post Office, was a busy man. He stared down at the drawings and the description scrawled across the pages in front of him. Foolishness and an incredible waste of a brain, he thought to himself. What was he supposed to do with this garbage now? They said he needed to review it and provide a definitive statement. He sighed, dipped the nib of his fountain pen into the pot of ink and wrote “The electric light, a submission by Thomas Alva Edison, is an absolute ignis fatuus, a fairy tale”.