"Have you confused your insight with your appetite"

"Have you confused your insight with your appetite"

Son: Father, the neighbor surely stole our apples. The basket is light, and his footsteps point our way.

Father: You have eaten the fruit of certainty. Does it taste sweet?

Son: I know he did the footsteps tells the narrative of robbery.

Father: Bring me a coin.

(The son brings a coin. The father flicks it high; it lands with a clap on the stone.)

Father: Tell me—if you flip a coin and expect it will be heads, are you right because you expected it, or only when it lands?

Son: Only when it lands.

Father: Now, if you record only the times it lands on heads, how often are you right?

Son: Every time I choose to count.

Father: Then see your trick: by counting only heads, you erase tails, which is just as true. A conclusion that excludes its opposite is not truth; have you confused your insight with your appetite?

(He hands the broom to his son.)

Father: Sweep only the left half of the porch.

(The son sweeps. Dust from the right drifts back.)

Son: It won’t stay clean.

Father: This is your mind when it jumps. It keeps one side shining and calls the wind a liar.

Son: Then how should I know?

Father: Hold the coin in an open palm. Let both faces be possible. Ask the apples; ask the neighbor; ask the wind. When you stop counting only heads you learn to see things as they are not worse than they are. When you leap to conclusions, you feed your hunger, and only your appetite grows.