Become parables

When the sage says: "Go over," he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labour were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least ...

... Concerning this a man once said: "Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares."
Another said: "I bet that is also a parable."
The first said: "You have won."
The second said: "But unfortunately only in parable."
The first said: "No, in reality: in parable you have lost."

From Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes. In German and English (New York, 1946).