The parable of the snake and the bird
There was once a snake who believed himself a bird. He was the birds soar and thought it was absolutely the best way to live. He didn't know he was a snake. He saw snakes crawling on the jungle floor from his tree and thought they were prey as any good bird would. Only, he wasn't an ordinary bird - he was a clever bird. He decided, to catch his prey he would act like his prey. Body pressed against the earth, he moved like the snakes of the grass, quietly planning their strike. His body lurched in an instant. Defenseless, the hunted snake twitched and flailed between the fangs of the flightless prowler. Now, poised above the recently deceased prey the snake no longer feels the pangs of hunger driving his thirst for violence. He sees a dead snake rotting.
Birds, actual birds, soon noticed the dead snake and wanted to feed on the decaying carcass. It was then the snake realized he was not a bird at all. He was in fact a snake, meant to hunt with his belly on the Earth. At first, it pained the snake greatly to acknowledge he would never be like the birds he worshipped. His whole idea of self had been tied to his future as a bird. The bird who enjoys the freedom of the vast oceans of sky above the dangerous earth. The bird who sees the large picture of the world and travels freely among the clouds. No, the snake was not a bird. The snake smelled with his tongue and spent sleepless nights crawling out of his skin when it became too tight.
After the snake acknowledged he wasn't and would never be a bird, he was finally free to be a snake.