http://www.surelyfunctional.com/pages/08.htmlThere was once a family with three children who loved tomatoes so much that the mother and the father decided to plant a tomato garden in their backyard. They went to the store and bought a packet of seeds, but when they planted them in the soil, one of the seeds refused to grow. Of course the family did not realize this. All they saw were the tiny green sprouts shooting up from the soil. The one little seed who stayed in his shell was outside of their awareness.
His sprouting brothers would say to him "Why won't you come out? It's much better up here in the light"
"No!" He would cry. "I don't know what's up there, and I'm perfectly fine down here"
So the sun beat down and the tomato plants grew and grew.
The ornery seed soon found that no matter how hard he resisted though, the sunlight somehow drew his stem towards the sky. Hating the light for the monsters it had turned his brothers into, the little seed resorted to eating his own shoot to prevent succumbing to this terrible fate. And it hurt. It hurt him very much, but it was all he knew how to do, so he told himself this pain was all there was. It was worth it, he kept telling himself, because only the weakest plants needed light, and he was going to be strong. There was no alternative.
As the other tomato plants began to blossom they cried out to their little brother. "Seed, please come out. We love you and want to see you, and it hurts us to see you destroy yourself like this." But the seed would have none of this nonsense. He wanted to have fun, and how could a plant have fun by conforming to the lifestyle of all the other plants? He wanted to stay in the soil forever.
Summer came and the tomato plants bore their fruit. The family that planted them made tomato soup and homemade ketchup and salads and sandwiches, and they loved all this food very much. The sprouted plants told their brother how happy the children were and how much care the family gave them by watering their roots, and fertilizing them, and even talking to them occasionally.
"Bah! Children! Family!" Called out the seed. "How do I even know these children even exist! You're all a bunch of fools."
Fall came and the plants still had not given up on their lonesome brother. And he still would not accept their love. But on the eighteenth of October, the tension holding back his shoots and leaves was to much for the little seed to bear. In agony, he did not know where else to turn, but to the sun. And in that first moment when he touched the air, he know he had been wrong all those months. As much as he wanted to deny it and stay in his shell, he had no choice but to obey the transcendent call. And his brothers smiled down on him, and the sun shone his rays on the little sprout as much as on his brothers, but winter was fast approaching.
Though there were no I-told-you-so's, no reproach or condescension of any kind, the tiny sprout shed his only leaf in grief, like a teardrop. He wept for all he had missed spending his life in fear, in isolation, in horrible pain. But there was only love for the little sprout now. A new freedom that fed his soul and made his existence bearable. Only love.
