Monday, April 14, 2008

Nasrudin Thinks Foolishly

Besides watching myself in daily life, I have learned quite a bit about thinking foolishly from the folk hero/clown/trickster/fool Mulla Nasrudin. I was first introduced to some of the stories 25 years ago in a psychology book by Robert Ornstein, who used these jokes to help explain how the mind works. He had gotten them from Idries Shah, who published collections of Nasrudin tales.

This was also around the same time I took my first theatrical clown workshop and realized humor could sometimes do more than entertain.

Here is a web page that will give you a different Nasrudin story every time you reload the page.

Foolish Question: Can you see any of your own behavior in any of these stories?