A wee little oak tree poked his head up from the ground and looked around. He was in the middle of a row of mighty oak trees planted by the edge of a field of sunflowers.
He saw the other oaks, towering over the sunflowers, and he was awed.
He saw how tall they were, and he resolved to grow that tall. He saw how their bark was thick and brown, and their leaves lush dark green. He stretched as high as he could, and he felt his leaves grow out, in pairs, alternating back and forwards, and then sideways all the way up his trunk. He couldn't wait for his leaves to broaden out like the other oaks. He concentrated and concentrated and grew a great big leaf, even bigger and rounder than the leaves of the adult oak trees, right on the very top of his trunk. And rather than one peak, that huge leaf had points all around it. He laughed and rejoiced in the ease with which he had grown such a mighty leaf.
The wind blew, and the sunflowers swayed too and fro in the field. But the oak trees stood like rocks, monuments above him against the breeze. The little oak tree saw their strength, and the raw power of it took his breath away. He saw that there were little sunflowers around him, and he knew it was his duty to protect them. He stiffened his trunk, and he turned his great enormous leaf on the top of his head away from the wind and he gritted his teeth (it's my parable, I can say whether the damn tree had teeth, k?) and he held his ground. The wind blew with all its might, and he withstood it so well that his leaves barely touched the ground, and his trunk barely swayed compared to the sunflowers that he protected, and only a little more than the adult oak trees. That wind was so strong that some of the oak trees even lost some small branches, but the little oak didn't have any branches yet, so he was unmarred.
His bark began to change, from light green, to dark green, then to dark green with little hairs on it. He was sure, certain, that these were the little fibres that would stiffen his bark, and he checked them every night to be sure that they were turning into bark, which of course he could tell that they were.
And then the birds came! They perched in the trees around him, and on his very peak. Truly his huge leaf, the pride of his little oak existence, seemed very popular, and reached almost halfway up the biggest of the adult oaks. It was the perfect height for the birds, he could tell. Not as tall as an adult oak, and higher than all the sunflowers, but only by just enough that the birds could easily fly down and eat the sunflower seeds from their flowers.
He saw the other trees making acorns, and he tried all different techniques to make his own, without any success. But, he told himself, the effort is part of the learning process, and will make the success all the sweeter. In fact, he was trying harder than any of the other oaks to make acorns, and so it stood to reason that, when he succeeded, his acorns would be the best acorns, and make the best new little oak trees like him.
Picture him, in the peak of his happiness, the birds perched on his top-leaf, the huge round leaf with its dozens of points (when he was covered from root to stem with such leaves, wouldn't the other trees be impressed!) and the leaves up his trunk broadening out and filling him with warmth (he wondered how it would feel to have buds in the spring. Did they tickle?) and his bark beginning to harden (into such tough bark, oh he couldn't wait) and his alternating leaves up his trunk (which was so straight, even straighter than the oak trunks, and almost as thick as a bird's body, at this rate they would be making nests in his branches next spring!). He is the happiest oak tree, and a huge bright smile shines all the way around his top-leaf.
He is the happiest oak tree he could ever imagine.
