The Parable of the Coryphaena Hippurus

A fish--a mahimahi--is swimming in the ocean one day, enjoying life, thinking to himself, "Life is good, the ocean is endless, and everyday my only obligations are to myself and my own well-being." Suddenly he spies two small anchovies shining brilliantly in the afternoon sunlight. They drift statically: two precious gifts offering themselves unto the mahimahi, who, at the moment, is so content with life and the ease with which he will be able to eat the anchovies that he can't help but think, "Lo! here god has proffered two veritable confirmations that indeed I am blessed. Life is wonderful." He swims up to the anchovies and swallows one of them whole, betraying an assuredness. In doing so, a sensation instantaneously spreads over his person , a sensation that can be summed up in a single word: "food." However, something stymies this feeling from blossoming fully, from completing its essence. The fish feels a hook pierce his mouth and burst through his lower lip and right cheek. The hook, already pulling the fish to his imminent doom, produces such a sharp pain that the fish contemplates: what began as an unassuming fulfillment of a desire proved to be avarice. As he wildly resists the hook, oscillating back and forth, he thinks to himself: "God damn it! Truly, this is the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life."

Meanwhile, the fisherman, or the doomsayer, feeling the tug on his fishing pole rejoices: "Then I am blessed after all!"