Yes. I’m on parole again.

Anyway, I’ve come up with a little parable.

There once was a boy who grew up by the sea. His family owned a beautiful stretch of beach. It was a private beach, and therefore one of the most beautiful beaches ever to grace the planet. Only a privileged few could walk on its pristine sands. And there he frolicked every day, happy and carefree, sand and sea and sky as wide as the horizon. All of nature was his: the birds, the shells, the fish, the clouds, the crabs. Then he turned seven. It was time, he was told, to go to school.

He was sent inland, far far away from the coast, to a place they called school. There he met children. Oh, there were so many of them, children who had never felt a salty breeze on their cheeks, or heard the music of the waves, or slept alone under the starry expanse. They boasted of their homes. They told him of their private sandboxes and all their shiny spades and digging toys and – what’s that? – he didn’t have a sandbox? The children laughed. They pointed their little fingers at him and giggled, why, he doesn’t have a sandbox! The next day they brought their toys and spades and showed them off to him, their noses in the air, their eyes twinkling with contempt. The boy couldn’t understand. Why, he doesn’t know a thing! They laughed. A teacher passing by heard the commotion. One girl told the teacher, her voice tinged with pity, that this boy didn’t know what a sandbox was. The teacher reached out and patted the boy on the head with sincere condescension. She said, one day we’ll take you to a sandbox, okay? The boy only nodded. She continued, then you’ll see what real fun is like, you poor thing.

The boy hated school.