Let me tell you a story.

Back in medieval times, there were two different advisors to the king. The "wise men" and the "fool". These two titles were completely irrelevant to their purpose in the king's court. The title "wise men" could easily be replaced with the contemporary term "yes men". Shall we raise taxes? Oh yes my king. Shall we declare war on the French for laughs? Oh how wise my king. Do you think I should rub my naked body in tar and feathers and run naked through the streets? Why of course my king. The kings were inbreeding much of the time and were only elected through blood heritage, so in result we have people who have the combined leadership, cunning, and intelligence of two gnats running powerful nations. If the "wise men" were the only advisors to the king, some countries might not have been as successful as they have become now.

Luckily, there was the fool.

It was the job of the fool to chastise, criticize, heckle and generally make life difficult for any suggestion made. Through this, the king could see both sides of the issues, as well as sides that he didn't even consider before. And through this fun method, better decisions on action could be made.

This story, surprisingly enough, holds some relevancy to the point I am trying to make.

The modern world needs fools. It needs jesters, hecklers, buffoons and cynics to show people the sides of the issues and even hopefully how to laugh about these issues. We need to make each other look like idiots in order to see other points of views. Now people, in the past, have charged me with being a fool in a negative context. They charged me with the crime of curiosity, the crime of humor and laughter, and the crime of hope. If these crimes are ones worthy of punishment, then I am guilty one and all and can be dragged to my cell now.

But the truth is, these aren't crimes no matter how much people would like to think. And yet even though this is a seemingly noble purpose (and if they agree then I've fooled them all) we have decided to take it a step farther. As the great philosopher the Cheshire Cat once said, "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

This is where I get to explain the cryptic messages you've received so far. Now when I say mad I don't mean anger. Right about now, most people are already picturing some man with a wild look in his eyes, a knife, a straitjacket and possibly a collection of other people's appendages. I don't mean that either. In case you missed it earlier, the definition of the word "mad" as seen in the Devil's Dictionary (previously published as The Cynic's World Book) is as follows:

This pretty much defines the sanctuary. We're the mad fools. Our main goal is the exploration of this place we call reality through philosophy. And if we can do it with humor along the way then we're better people for it. Of course, I should clear something up now. The fact that I keep saying "we" may have mislead some of you. There is only one operator of this page. My real name isn't that important, nor is it interesting enough to print here. My name here is the Lizard King. It's a title that provokes deep, philosophical consideration such as, "What in the world does that mean?" and "What is he smoking?" To tell you the truth, I don't have an answer for you, because I honestly don't remember what I was smoking. It just seemed right at the time and I'm sure I'll invent a more personal reason for it eventually.

Now the fact that we're a little unusual isn't completely accounted for by our personality. We're all mentally ill here. We're unstable and delusional and at peace with that fact. Of course, it isn't at all impossible that we're the only sane ones and while reading this you're banging your head on your asylum cell door for our amusement and scientific research. We'll talk about that later. It really doesn't matter either way. Because if you're here, you've at least got to be a little mad.

And if you deny that, you're the maddest of them all...