Lessons from Lasso

What we can learn from the "holy fool" on Apple TV.

I hadn’t heard of a “holy fool” before my conversation with the excellent author Belden Lane a few weeks back. As a theological scholar, Lane is always on the path to engaging with the holy, and his willingness to be foolish and playful is a way to enter that state of being.

In the book “Talking to Strangers,” Malcolm Gladwell, describes the archetype in Russian folklore called yurodivy, or the “Holy Fool.” He describes the Holy Fool as an outcast who society deems “eccentric” or “crazy” yet who also “has access to the truth.”

The outcast point of view allows the “Holy Fool” to see and speak to the heart of things.

A week ago, my friend Kelley, also a participant in the conversation with Belden Lane, sent me a link to a piece in the New York Times entitled “Ted Lasso, Holy Fool.”

As an admirer of the show and the “Holy Fool” life posture, I was intrigued.

When I think about Ted Lasso, my first instinct is to describe the show as wholesome. Still, the more I think about it, it’s not so much that the show is wholesome—it actually covers a lot of the same territory you find in plenty of popular dramas—but the difference is the “holy fool” at the center. The reason that Ted Lasso feels wholesome is that Ted responds to the events around him in a wholesome way. He extends good humor, kindness, and a generosity of spirit to everyone he interacts with—even those who don’t deserve it or are trying to sabotage him.

The magic of Ted Lasso is how disarming this approach to life is. In Ted’s sense of humor and kind nature, he disarms his opposition and draws them in, and by season three, those that set out in the hopes of seeing Ted fail have become his biggest champions and confidants.

Ted’s approach to life is also infectious. The budding bromance of Jamie Tartt and Roy Kent is a case in point. As Jamie teaches Roy how to ride a bike—the holy fools come out. It is in their playfulness with one another that the walls come down, and their friendship grows.

As the surgeon general recently pointed out, we are in a loneliness epidemic in America—equating loneliness's health consequences to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Here are some of the data, as reported by VOX:

In the 1970s, almost half of Americans (45 percent) said they could generally trust other people, according to the surgeon general’s report. Today, less than a third say the same. The amount of time that Americans say they spend alone every day had risen by nearly 30 minutes from 2003 to 2019 and increased another 20-plus minutes in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, which amounted to almost an additional full day of solitude over the course of a month. The amount of time that young people (ages 15-24) spend with their friends in person dropped by nearly 70 percent from 2003 to 2020, as long-running trends got worse when the pandemic set in. Half of the country says they have three or fewer close friends, double the number from 1990. Just 16 percent of Americans say they feel very attached to their local community.

Now, there is no question in my mind that our relationship with technology, smartphones, and social media is a significant contributor to this development. In a recent interview, Vivek Murthy acknowledged the contribution but also pointed out that our time online is a double whammy. Not only does the time we spend on our devices make us feel more lonely, but it is also time that we are not spending connecting with others. It is time that we are not being playful.

For the last five years, Jonathan Haidt has been calling attention to the consequences of generations of Americans not engaging in free play and what that means for our culture more broadly.

According to Haidt, engaging in free play is tremendously consequential in the development of young mammals. Watching my boys wrestle with their friends, each other, and their toddler sister, you can see how innate this play is to our species.

Haidt writes:

Young mammals play, and in doing so they expend energy, get injured and expose themselves to predators. Why don’t they just stay safe? Because mammals enter the world with unfinished nervous systems, and they require play — lots of it — to finish the job. The young human brain “expects” the child to engage in thousands of hours of play, including thousands of falls, scrapes, conflicts, insults, alliances, betrayals, status competitions, and even (within limits) acts of exclusion, in order to develop its full capacities.

The need for play, for a playfulness of spirit, is something that Ted Lasso reminds us should not just be left to the kids. It is play that gives life texture, dimension, intrigue. According to the relationship guru, Esther Perel it is play that distinguishes the relationships that just survive and those that thrive.

"What is the difference between relationships that survive and relationships that flourish? Playfulness - being able to transcend beyond the mundane,” says Perel. This is as true for couples in romantic relationships as it is for colleagues that work together. Playfulness breaks down invisible walls between people, often leading to more fluid teamwork as well as enhanced creativity, problem-solving or innovation breakthroughs.

Perel describes playfulness as key to sustaining and satisfying long-term relationships. It is the couples that play together, that approach life with a spirit of playfulness that are the most likely to find connection, creativity, and adventure—to explore together the parts of life that make it worth living.

If you approach life as full of dread, worry, and to-do lists—no wonder life feels devoid of meaning. If you approach life as curious, interesting, and full of opportunity—life is going to be a whole lot more enjoyable.

My wife and I just celebrated a wedding anniversary, and we did so by taking a road trip. We spent the weekend in Hannibal, MO—exploring caves like Tom Sawyer, getting to know strangers, doing historic house tours, and jogging around a bat sanctuary. One of the things I love most about our relationship is the desire to explore together and be playful with one another on the journey.

Of course, weekends away are good for a relationship, but in keeping with the advice of the insightful John Gottman or Ted Lasso—to build something that lasts, it is about finding joy in the small things, often—this is how we build a life worth living.

So enjoy the weekend, folks. Go play.

— Erin