The Story of the Sucker Fish (relayed by my GF Darshan)

Sucker fishes,

all clinging, clinging to the rocks

the river would rush by, and they would just hold on tighter.

One sucker fish wanted to know why they always cling to the rocks; it is so tiring and so mundane.

Why can't they just let go?

The elder sucker fish said "we can't let go, we will be beat against the rocks and pounded to death."

"how do you know?" said the little sucker fish.

"We don't know, we just have always been this way."

One day the little sucker fish was so tired of clinging that he gave up and let go of the rock and he got bounced around and swept away by the river, but eventually the river widened out and became calm, and the little sucker fish met all sort of other fish and made great friends, and sometimes he would stay, and when he felt like it, he would let the river take him away on a new adventure. He would meet other sucker fishes clinging to rocks, and they would be afraid for his life, begging him to cling onto the rocks with them lest he be killed by the wild river but the little sucker fish had to be true to himself.

(from the preface to Richard Bach's "Illusions").