Poor Foolish Things
Love Letter #14: Yearning to be foolish. Plus: what I've been consuming lately.
A Love Letter To is my monthly series where I share essays on culture, style and introspection, along with snippets of what I’ve been loving and fixationg on in the past month.
The Fool card in my tarot deck reads:
“You are pure potential. The Fool asks you to draw upon the spirit of youth, innocence and wonder…Take a bold leap and have faith that you will caught by the loving hands of the Universe.”
When I was in my freshman year of high school, I walked secretely to my ex- boyfriend’s house without anyone knowing. It felt like the height of teenage foolishness and I loved it. It was the first time I could remember doing something dumb fully on purpose.
I was 15 and I knew better but not better enough. “Don’t do anything stupid,” I remember my best friend at the time telling me, in so many words. She was wise beyond her years. I wasn’t in a place to pretend I was.
She had heard me shed one too many tears over a relationship that lasted barely a month and ended via a half-hearted text I read on my faded gray flip phone. This cycle of heartbreak was one I repeated years later even as I grew up and entered more mature relationships.
In my early adult years, I convinced myself that I had all the wisdom I already needed before I even turned 18. I was sure that whatever heartbreak, false hope or messiness I encountered, I could stay seperated enough. I felt that I was playing with fire in the smartest way possible.
And because of that, I revelled in the fleeting pleasure of choosing to do the foolish thing anyway (even if I didn’t do it that often). It didn’t feel stupid but it didn’t feel smart either. But I wasn’t concerned over seeming smart. Looking back on that day, I can’t even say “I didn’t know better”. I simply was aware of the consequence of a stupid action and did it anyway. It’s not that I didn’t know anything, it’s just I didn’t know how much I had left to learn.
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Now as adults, many of us (especially young women) have an innate desire to be taken seriously and to never make (or be perceived as making) foolish decisions. Whether it be in our profession, personal lives or relationships, we can immediately sense the slightest hint of patronization or assumption that we don’t know better.
We try to communicate with our outter performance — what we wear and don’t wear, what we say and don’t say — as a way to not be overlooked or underestimated.
So we often overcompensate. We try to be more serious, more aware more put together. Because the last thing we want is to be 15 again, walking to a boy’s house who doesn’t care about us with foolish hope in our heart.
I can’t help but think about the the most memorable quote about being a fool that we all read in high school english class. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan famously says about her daughter:
“I hope she grows up to be a fool. That’s the best thing a girl can be.”
This quote elicits many frusterating feelings for a modern woman in 2024: Why would she want her daughter to be willfully foolish? How is being stupid the best thing a girl can be?
But given the time period and Daisy’s situation, the quote — tragic as it is — makes perfect sense from her perspective. Yes, in a way, wanting to be a fool (both for herself and her daugher) is a concession, a forfeit of her own intelligence.
At the same time, it comes across as a form of survival. A sad one, but one that fits her situation and her personality; she has no desire to challenge the social norms of the world she lives in.
In this sense, Daisy’s foolishness is intentional. And in a way, she wants to take away that hope from her daughter before she’s even old enough to speak.
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In the 2023 film Poor Things, Bella Baxter is brought back to life with the brain of an infant with the body of an adult. Throughout the film, we start to see that her “condition” is both a strength and a weakness.
On the one hand, she’s extremly vulnerable and is constantly taken advantage of — specifically by the men around her that tug her in different directions like a rag doll. On the other hand, she enters the world with a freedom many adults don’t have: flailing and prancing, unafraid (and blissfully unaware) of societal norms and rules. Instead, many of her decisions are completely motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and play — things that in the “real world” are supposed to be scarce and rationed.
This is where the fantastical element of the Poor Things really shines through. The premise, bizarre as it is — speaks volumes about how women are treated in society (both in fiction and reality). Even the costuming, done by Holly Waddington tells a story of pushing the boundaries of “polite society” by playing with lingerie, puff sleeves and unserious silhouttes. The wardrobe of the film cleverly reshapes reality like the story does.
In both The Great Gatsby and Poor Things, women are treated as dolls to be pampered, groomed and admired — but never encouraged to go against the grain. But unlike Daisy, Bella feels moved and motivated to change (or at the very least, question) the world around her — no matter how hopeless it appeares to be. And yes, this is mainly because she simply does not know better.
Instead, she meets each discovery in the face with earnest wonder. Whether it’s the beautiful things in life like pleasure, elation, and knowledge or the horrible sides of life like pain, grief and horror. She breathes in the world around her — the glorious and the grotesque — all in a short timespan. And with it all, she plays with it: muddles the lines and re-draws them:
"I'm a changingable feast, as are all of we" — Bella Baxter
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I know I’m not the only person in today’s generation who is well into adulthood and still feels (in Mitski’s words) like a “tall child.” Every year I seem to know more and less at the same time. And it feels wrong, at the ripe age of 28 to sometimes feel like you’re at square one. To feel like you know nothing, again.
At 18, we have the confidence to do the wrong thing simply because we hadn’t made the wrong decision enough times before. But now, as an adult, you have to reckon with the past before you move forward. You have to carry your baggage everywhere you go. You have to contextualize it, reframe it, make it make sense.
It’s exhausting; holding all of these layers of ourselves and knowing that we are destined to contradict ourselves constantly. Until one day we wake up and realize that our foolish days may be numbered and the excuse of being young is running dry.
And yet, we still act the fool. Maybe because it’s fun, easy and human. Or because that occassional desire to let it all go and return to knowing nothing is enticing as it is scary. Maybe we’re trying to wipe ourselves clean, give ourselves a new, infant brain — a blank slate to forget the context of it all.
Because at the end of the day, you can’t have revelations without knowing nothing first.
Babe, wake up - new Berlioz track just dropped!!!! Also forgot to brag about how I saw him live back in February and it changed my life a little bit.
Audiobooks!!!! The only reason I’ve consumed any literature of any kind this year is because of audiobooks. Currently devouring anything to do with obsession, desire and envy. Most recently: “Yellowface” by RF Kuang and “I’m A Fan” by Sheena Patel (reviews on both to come later maybe!!!)
So we’re all square dancing and having a spiritual experience to Beyonce’s “COWBOY CARTER”, right???? Current favorites include: “Ya Ya,” “Bodyguard” and “Riverdance”.
If you’re currently growing out an impulsive winter bob like I am, I highly reccomend Good Squish scrunchies that add the right amount of volume and color to any up do.
Thinking about the lime green “Absinthe” dress by Dior that Nicole Kidman wore to the Oscars in 1997. To me, it’s the perfect wedding guest inspo dress for spring because it has so many delicious elements: high neckline, embroidered flowers and a perfect side slit.
Hopecore posts that are keeping me afloat: this video of a woman guiding a family of ducklings and this TikTok of ballet dancers looking at the eclipse. :’)
As always, thanks for reading and being here!
Yours, Arbela. 💌
LOVED the comparison between Daisy and Bella!!