It’s me! I’m the March Fool! It’s sort of like the March Hare, only with less hare*, and more foolishness. While April Fools is all about lying to fool people, the March Fool is instead all about telling the truth, which is often even more foolish for a person trying to run a business. (Which is also me; I’m accepting clients for my freelance writing, specializing in humor or rhyme, covering everything from speechwriting to children’s books.)

But as a professional Fool**, one of the most foolish things I can do is to share too much about my thoughts. For example, today is the Trans Day of Visibility, and I noticed that while I saw a lot of posts about it on Facebook and Twitter, I saw very few posts about it on LinkedIn, and pretty much exclusively from people working in the DEI field. Which I’d guess is because there it’s on-brand, but otherwise bringing up politics outside of your field might alienate some potential clients for no gain.

For me though, one of the advantages of being my own boss is that I don’t have to hide my core beliefs. Which goes beyond politics. Politics are things like do I like Biden or Trump (neither), should UBI exist (yes), how should taxes work (better). Those are just opinions I have, but one of my guiding principles and beliefs for life is this:

People are people.

Pretty simple, really, but no less important for that fact. People are people, regardless of their race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, favorite music, or weird hobby that you think is a waste of time. Generally, people are just trying to live their best lives, and as long as they’re not hurting anyone else***, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to do so. You don’t have to be a fan. You can even think, “This makes no sense to me and I’d never live like that.” Nobody’s asking you to.

But most of the problems and unhappiness in the world are a direct result of someone deciding that a certain category of people aren’t really people, or don’t really count because they’re somehow lesser and therefore don’t deserve to be treated like fellow people. This is wrong. People are people. And again, that doesn’t mean that you have to like or believe whatever they do. I might think some of your beliefs are unsupported superstition and some of your hobbies are a waste of time. And you might think similarly about the fact that I’ve now spent over 100 hours playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, and refuse to put my winter coat away yet, lest it anger the snow gods. You can even think literally everything I do is dumb, from writing humor columns about Pokemon, to making cranberry chicken salad and liverwurst sandwiches****. But as long as I’m not harming anyone, I deserve the right to live my dumb life in the way that makes me happiest. As do you. As does everyone.

Because ultimately, that’s what we’re all doing – just trying to live our dumb little lives, avoid unpleasant annoyances, and be happy. If we can improve other people’s lives along the way, better yet. But at bare minimum, we should try to avoid making other people’s lives worse. Yes, even if you don’t agree with all their choices. Because other people deserve the chance to live their best lives and pursue happiness too. Other people are people.

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*a bald-faced truth

**an occupation I’m sure I identify with thanks to a childhood spent listening to George Carlin’s “Occupation: Foole” many dozens of times

***Karl Popper says, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off!”

****I know it sounds dodgy, but it’s surprisingly good. I recommend it with Russian dressing on rye.