At length the horses came into the final stretch, and, except for King Alphonso, who trailed rather substantially, there were only a few lengths between the leader and the trailing horse. But in that final, all-consuming, frenzied gallop, where mere wish and common effort give way to inner strength and spiritual power, the spaces increased, so that finally the children, with their feelings crushed by the surprise of unexpected failure and by the dismay of dashed hope, watched the horses run across the finish line in this order: 1. Outside Chance; 2. Also Ran; 3. Dotty's Trotter; 4. Sure Win; 5. High Risk; 6. Looking Good; 7. King Alphonso.
While the girl burst into unrestrained sobbing, the boy, feeling the full difficulty of the conflict between youth and manhood, choked his tears back, and knowing his father to be a philosophical type, tried to see the metaphorical application of this event. "This race is an allegory, isn't it, Father?" he asked, "where we learn that to succeed we must avoid what appears to be a 'Sure Win' and apply ourselves instead to the 'Outside Chance.'"
"No, my boy," the man answered. "The lesson is that we should not pay attention to names and appearances, but that we should penetrate beneath the surfaces of things; that we must consider real abilities, evaluate past records, and trust our judgment to bring us to a knowledge of the truth. Appearances and labels are often false and seldom accurately reflect inner realities. We must not let our casual perceptions influence our beliefs or rule our actions. I bet on Outside Chance because he previously has consistently outperformed the other horses in today's race, or horses that have beat the others. I care not about his name. Read where it says that God does not judge by external appearances, and imitate him."
"But I still like Looking Good and I wanted him to win," his daughter said perversely, wiping her tears and stamping her foot. "Outside Chance is a creep."
"And now, my daughter," said the man, "you have first felt the conflict between reason and passion. May you learn to resolve it well."
The Oppressed Girl
This may seem like a tall story, but there was once a teenage girl who didn't get along with her parents. "I'm sick and tired of all these oppressive rules," she would complain. "I feel just totally controlled. I want to be free!" So she ran away from home. "Now," she thought, "I can stay up all night and listen to loud music and watch awful movies."
When she told her friends of her new freedom, they said, "Great!
Let's celebrate and get drunk."
"Yeah, why not?" she replied. "I can do anything I want." So she drank and laughed and vomited and passed out on the bathroom floor.
A little while later, she met an older girl who seemed to be experienced in the ways of freedom. "Hey," said the older girl, "to be free, just take these pills and free your mind from all your cares." So the teenage girl took the pills and felt strange and didn't sleep for three days and then closed her eyes and woke up in the middle of the following week.