Parable of the immoderate use of apples.

There once was a man who had nothing except his knowledge. At a market he saw a stall with a huge pile of fine looking apples upon it & the apple-seller eating a juicy one. He approached, smiling, & was about to offer to be useful in exchange for a few apples, when the apple-seller said, "I dont like the look of you," took a last bite of fruit & threw the core at the man's feet, adding, "I've got, you haven't. That's just the way it is. Get lost!"
The man was hurt & insulted, but also hungry. He picked up the core & nibbled the last of the flesh from it, but then decided to keep what remained as a reminder of how some people behave.
A while later the man happened on a kind farmer who owned plenty of land. The farmer accepted the man's offer to be useful in exchange for food & soon he was working there regularly. Since they got on well, so would presumably make good neighbours, & the farmer had so much land, they came to an agreement whereby the farmer would give the man a small field of his own in exchange for 10 years work, during which he would be fed, clothed & housed, but could only tend his own field during his free time.
The man planted the seeds from his reminder & many others he came across & did his best to tend his burgeoning project. It wasn't easy, but, after 10 years, he had a thriving orchard of young trees & a reputation for producing small amounts of excellent cider, which he often shared with the farmer as they chatted about the problems of pests & the importance of bees.
Now that he could devote more time to his own land, in the coming years, the man found himself with bumper harvests. He would take the best apples down to market & undercut the original apple-seller. One day, he & the farmer had drunk a good skinful of cider, when a friend happened by & informed them that the original apple-seller had gone out of business & was destitute. The man selected a basketful of the pick of the season & set off to find the poor woman.
(To be continued...)

The man found the erstwhile apple-seller looking decidedly the worse for poverty. He approached & gave her the basket of his finest produce, saying, "Power is good, but the combination of knowledge & perseverence is better."
Now, that day he was in a mellow mood. Had he been hungover, or grumpy for some other reason, he may have thrown rotten windfall at her feet & said, "Dont piss down my back & tell me its raining!" If he'd been in a philosophical mood, he may have taken her a bottle of cider & said, "You gave me the seeds of your own destruction." Of course, if this had happened near New York, he probably would have asked, "How'd ya like them apples?"

It's a great story, but I think it speaks more to love and forgiveness than it does the importance of knowledge and perseverance.

Knowledge and perseverance/hard work make it possible for us to improve the quality of our lives. We are able to improve our condition because of those qualities, a great testament to capitalism if ever there was one. When I read this story, I read about a man who saw the best and worst of what humanity had to offer and then, when it came time to choose which kind of man he would be, choose to be the greater of the two. He decided that another person's life was more important than his own pride.

That's what I get from it anyway.

Oh, I see magnanimity in victory here. Sure enough, he helped the woman out a bit, and sure enough, he gave her something to think on,

BUT

sure enough, he made sure he rubbed her nose in them apples!

Excellent read, Bunken Drum! I hardly knew ye were a philosopher, on top of being... that... spokesman!

This is some sort of verbal Rorshach test, where you get to see what it is we see in it, ain't it? Stay outta my head, man, it's dark and scary in there...

I'd write a longer critique, but I've got to work 12 tomorrow, and really ought to get my raggedy fanny to bed. Maybe more later, eh?

------------> had to borrow an extra hand to give it a 3 thumbs up!