Neville's childhood memory used as the shape of a life. In little Barbados the teachers set an obstacle race: a tarpaulin pegged flat and stretched tight on both sides, to be crawled through until you came out exhausted; then barrels to go through; then some obstruction to jump; then a greased pole to climb; then, hardest of all, a greased pig to catch. And that is life: an obstacle race. The point he takes from it is the one he asks in the question period - who conceived it? Man did. The teachers built the course, so the opposition is not an accident of the world but a thing deliberately made, and made by the one who wants the runner through it. There is always a prize at the end, but there is opposition for the race. He adds the detail that gives it its weight: when you are a child it is fun, and you think it is fun though your body is done in by the end. About five lectures. At 76 the race carries Paul's 'I have finished the race' (M772); at 1172 and 1385 the obstacles are the states a man moves through; at 1256 a questioner recalls the story back to him years after he told it, which is how much of it stuck.