“To call a man a "fool" means that we consider that no good is to be expected from him; and to do this is to bring very serious consequences upon ourselves.”
- Emmet Fox, The Sermon On The Mount, p.58
The consequences are:
That I receive my own judgment. Whatever is unacceptable in someone else is absolutely unacceptable in me. What is foolish for them to do is foolish times ten for me. And so I choke off my limitlessness in favor of a prison of arbitrarily self-defined “non-foolishness.”
That I live in fear of this man, that I worry about what he will do to me or others.
That I abandon my heart’s desire in order to attack, argue with, avoid or work around his imaginary foolishness.
When I create a fool by believing a thought of foolishness, I create something from which I must protect myself and immediately bring all this suffering on myself.