The Fool's Journey is the Hero's Journey

The fool is both the beginning and the end of the journey. He is heroic because he jumps off the place of comfort into the place of the unknown. The Fool’s Journey is similar to the monomyth of the Hero’s Journey, in which the hero has a call to adventure and must leave the safety and comfort of the Ordinary World and enter into the unknown and difficult territory of the Special World. Here he must defeat his dragon (worst fear, event, person or memory long avoided), and gather the gold, the “treasure hard to attain”.

The journey is a psychological and spiritual death and rebirth, in which an old aspect of oneself dies, giving birth to a new and more capable self. Finally, the hero must return to his people in the Ordinary World and share the gift acquired in the Special World with others, something with the power to heal, whether it is wisdom, love, or simply the experience of surviving the Special World.