The Fool On the Hill

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I posted this in my blog, but... I was so struck by the song and my thoughts on it, I felt the need to post it here:

Last night, I watched a movie entitled Dinner for Schmucks. This post is not about that movie, though, but the song that was playing in the beginning.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkGVccgJrA[/youtube]

This song struck me because of how well it described me. In fact, it didn't just describe me exceptionally well, it seemed to describe Chuang Tzu perfectly.

What must Hui Tzu have thought of Chuang Tzu, to be so dismissive of a post with such honor and respect as Prime Minister of Liang? It seems that people everywhere considered Chuang Tzu a fool. It does not matter, though. He recognizes the wisdom within him, so their thoughts on the matter prove themselves the fools.

I've talked about how lucky I was to be able to develop enough confidence in myself that I could dismiss the things people would say about me. A lot of autistics don't get around to developing this confidence before the dozens of people that insist that they're somehow wrong finally get to them. I learned long ago that I have a unique way of viewing the world, and I think that's largely due to the fact that I am autistic.

And yet, when I tell people my view of the world, they are dismissive of it. It's not how they see the world, and so it must be wrong. I've often said that, in the land of the blind, a one eyed woman would be locked up in a mental institution.

There are people out there that see the wisdom in the way I (and other autistics) see the world, but the vast majority do not. It is sad, but you must understand that that does not make you a fool. Wise men are often called fools. Obviously, that doesn't make them so.

Don't let the words of foolish people affect you so. Do not blind yourself to the eyes in your head that see the world spinning around merely because of the words of others.

I like the Beatles but also Simon & Garfunkel.

You're just now hearing 'Fool on the Hill' for the first time?

This was one of my personal theme songs in high school.

I only just finished hearing this song for the first time a few seconds ago, in this very thread. Neat song, and neat post, MrLoony.

Yeah I always liked and identified with it. I also liked the "music video" to it (I think it was actually somewhere in Magical Mystery Tour movie, that's the only way I can figure out that I'd have seen it prior to the web existing.)

can somebody please tell me what that song was saying? what or who was it really talking about?

I have long been very fond of this song.

I remember thinking that it was about situations not necessarily about wisdom, but like... where everyone hates and dismisses someone except that they actually understand more than they're given credit for. Which meant a lot to me especially since people had started really hard-core dismissing me as in one form or another "insane" or similar ideas about my mind not working well enough to understand basic things about reality. When actually I was perceiving a lot more accurate things about the world than they were believing.

Actually... that says it a lot better than I did.

thanks to all with the theories. it turns out that this song has an "etymology" that is quite complex, but is rooted in a weird paranormal incident when paul was walking his dog [named martha] atop primrose hill overlooking london, and as he watched the sunrise, he noticed martha went missing. paul looked around for her when he encountered a strange man wearing a belted raincoat- the two exchanged pleasantries about the sublime view of the city atop the hill, then paul turned away from the man for an instant, and when he looked back the man was gone, which was strange because the nearest trees were hundreds of feet away and the man could not have run that far that fast.
so that is one part of the fool on the hill, the original impetus for lennon/mccartney to write it down on paper. the other part of the fool has to do with george and his veneration of the maharishi, "head in a cloud, the man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud" [IOW the hindu religion has been referred as being made up "of thousands of gods/voices"]- and when george tried to get paul and john to share his interest, he was met with indifference ["but nobody ever hears him, or the sound he appears to make, and he never seems to notice..."], IOW john and paul weren't listening. so i am gathering that the maharishi was indeed the major part of the subject of "the fool on the hill."
ah, the creative process of creative people can seem mightily convoluted and impenetrable to more regular folk.

How have I never heard of this before?