To whom shall I hire myself?

Excerpts from the opening passage of A Season in Hell:

Long ago, if my memory serves, life was a feast where every heart was open, where every wine flowed...
I fled, entrusting my treasure to you, o witches, o misery, o hate...
I made the muffled leap of a wild beast onto any hint of joy, to strangle it...
Misfortune was my god. I lay in the mud, I withered in criminal air...
And spring left me with an idiot's unbearable laughter.

What first struck me when I drew these cards was the contrast between ownership and dispossession--the Fool, deprived of everything up to and including his dignity, flanked by what may be seen as symbols of comfort and prosperity; two cups, displayed as if at a banquet-table, and two coins, wrapped in a banner that closely resembles the sign for infinity, peeled back and sprouting flowered vines. These two pips are, aside from any divinatory meaning they suggest, cards of ownership--in almost every Marseille deck they bear the name and location of the deck's creator, serving as both signature and advertisement for the maître-cartier.

We have a table set for two, and the promise of companionship. We have a name and an establishment taking their place in society, and the promise of wealth. And between the two we have a solitary wanderer (not counting the little beast who's quite clearly not a friendly acquaintance), a man without rank or stable address, a man who might not have two coins to rub together.

Unlike any other card in the Marseille deck, the Fool is literally without a fixed position. He is unnumbered, and so may move through the deck at will, appearing anywhere in the sequence or outside of it completely; he is that twofold fugitive I've spoken of. In the game of tarot he is something like the Joker, or wild card, but does not take on the identity of the desired card--he is called the "excuse", because he may be played at any time the holder wishes but is not given to the hand's winner, instead replaced by whichever card the holder wishes. He can never win a hand, but he temporarily excuses the holder from the rules of the game.

For whatever reason, he is itinerant, on the road, and seemingly oblivious to his own suffering, or at least resigned to it for the moment. He's left behind comfort, the symmetry and abundance of the two full cups, and he's looking ahead at the road that bears someone else's name, a road that appears circuitous. He may in fact be looking for work, but his gaze suggests otherwise.

We all know the story of the court jester, and how his lack of status frees him to speak the truth to the king, even mock him, without fear of the consequences. To be outside of the rules is to be exempt from following them. To be known by many names, or no name at all, is to remain unlimited right down to the level of our fundamental identity. The Fool is known by many names: madman, beggar, mystic, zero-by-proxy, idiot Buddha--but none of them define him, and he is under no obligation to accept them. He walks out of the frame, unowned and unburdened.

We may assume our Fool has chosen to walk away, and in choosing is a moment of sacrifice. Will we be defined by the choice, or the sacrifice? Will we allow what we've left behind to dog us, or will we see the infinite possibilities ahead? Truly, what is the price of freedom, and whose work will we be devoted to, ours or someone else's?