19
THE RICHEST GROOM
ments and the road the whole time. My horse goes slower than an auto-
mobile, but at the same time I don’t have to do anything with it, so I’m not
distracted from the movement of my thought. I can fall asleep and the horse
will run home itself. You said you had problems with gasoline. The horse
finds fodder in the pasture itself. Not only that, tell me where you’re in such
a hurry to get to in your car?”
“I want to buy spare parts in advance. I know what might break down in
my car soon.”
“So you mean you have learned so much about equipment that you can
even picture all future breakdowns accurately?”
“Yes, I have! I studied equipment in special courses for three years. You
remember, I invited you to attend the courses, too.”
“You gave your thought over to this equipment for three years. Equip-
ment that breaks down and gets old.”
“Your horse will get old and die, too.”
“Yes, of course, it will. But before that it will give birth to a foal. It will
grow up, and I will ride it. The animate serves man forever, but the dead
only cuts his time short.”
“The whole village thinks your opinions strange. Everyone considers me
successful and rich and you living merely at the expense of your aged father.
You haven’t even changed the look of the trees and bushes a tiny bit on your
father’s land.”
“But I loved them. I tried to understand the purpose of all of them and
the connections between them. I encouraged those starting to wither with
my gaze and touch. Now everything will bloom this spring in accord, by it-
self, requiring no intervention, merely thirsting to offer up its fruits by sum-
mer and fall.”
“Truly, my friend, you are an odd one.” The entrepreneur sighed. “You
are always walking around and admiring your homestead, your orchard and
flowers. You say in this way that you are presenting your thoughts with free-
dom?”
“Yes.”
“But why do you need free thought? What is the point of freedom of
