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Once there was a thing called a broad mind. I can’t tell you what kind of a thing it was, but I can tell you what it looked like. It had wings for flights of imagination, webbed feet for plunging into the depths of things, eyes that could see into the farthest galaxies, and arms that could embrace the whole wide world.
Now one day, this broad mind landed on a log by the river, where a child of the giants sat tying a fishing line. It shook out its wings in the afternoon sun, and then it flew up into the air.
The child grabbed it in mid flight. “Oh, look how fast you fly, he said. “Gee I wonder how fast you run?”
So the child of the giants carried the broad mind to a racing track and set it down at the starting line. “Now, run,” commanded the child. The broad mind flew up into the air.
“No, no!” he said. “I didn’t say FLY, I said RUN. You don’t need wings to run. Those wings will just slow you down.”
So he pulled all the wings off the little broad mind.
Once again, he set the broad mind down at the starting line. But the broad mind didn’t run. Instead, it began to wonder about the purpose of this race.
And so it swam down, down into the origins of the game. It had almost plunged out of sight when the child grabbed it back.
“No, no!” he said. “I didn’t say PLUNGE into the depths of things, I said RUN. You don’t need webbed feet to run. Those webs will just slow you down.”
So he cut the webs from between the toes of the broad mind. When the surgery was complete, the broad mind had a pair of feet with toes designed for pure speed.
He put it back on the racing track, and then what do you know?
The broad mind RAN!
Fast as an arrow it flew—past the finish line and into a field, past the field and into a gully,
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