A hermit crab was in the habit of crossing the ocean floor every year. His shell was sturdy and thick, and protected him from the ravages of his travels: from coral scrapes, lobster claws, fierce currents. It was scarred and beaten, but it had served him well.

One day, on the morning of his yearly journey, he cast it off. It swirled away on a fast current until it was gone. His friend the lightning whelk was stunned. “Crab,” said the whelk, “what are you doing? You’ll never make it across without a shell. Stay here this season: I’ll build you another, better than the last one.”

The crab shook his head. “Thanks whelk, but I don’t want one. I never even knew I had a shell until one day a minnow pointed it out to me. Ever since then I’ve realized it’s not me crossing that ocean every year: it’s a shell. I want to see what it’s like with all my skin, my head held high, no armor to hide behind, all of me really making that trip across the ocean floor.”

The whelk was adamant: “You’re crazy. Without that shell you’ll die. Fish will see you’re defenseless, and currents will whisk you, unprotected, into sharp coral. Please stay.”

The crab was unmoved: “My shoulders are tired: shells are heavy. What good is life stooped over and bent? It’s possible that within a few feet I’ll be swept up and crushed, or snatched up and eaten. I know that. But I’d rather have a few feet of freedom than leagues of illusion.”

There was a mud-man. He lived in a small pond of muck in the middle of a beautiful glade. When he rose up from the mud, he was filthy and disgusting. And so he he’d only rise in the tiniest hours of the morning, hoping no one would be there to see his ugliness.

But most of the time the creatures of the forest would spot him, all the animals and insects, and even the lichen and moss, and they’d curse and shout for him to sink back into his sludge. Always he would drop fast into the muck, leaving no trace that he had been above the surface.

One day he felt a tickling on his shoulder. A snail was crawling up to his ear to speak to him, and he said: “Mud-Man, it’s Snail. Would you like to come live with the other animals in the Bog nearby? There’s Toad, Newt and all sorts of other friends who have been wanting to meet you for a long time. If you want, tonight I can guide you there.”

The Mud-Man refused. “Thank you Snail. I know if I came with you then everyone there would love me, and I them. But I don’t want that. I just want what I have.”

“What is that?” Snail asked, confused.

The Mud-Man said: “Hate.”

“Wallow in your hatred if you must,” said the snail sadly, “Perhaps one day you’ll reconsider.” And with that he crawled away.

Time passed and the Mud-Man no longer found sustenance in despising the creatures of the glade. One day he resolved to join the swamp creatures. In the blackest cover of midnight he skulked quietly away, doing his best to make no noise, carefully negotiating his great dripping bulk through the foliage.
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Two beetles, great friends, stumbled on a huge pile carrion, and each decided differently what to do with his share.

The first beetle was ecstatic about the windfall. He didn’t deliberate long. He wanted to keep the carrion for himself and his family. He planned to build a great reserve so he’d never have to worry about providing.

The second beetle decided to give almost everything to the weak and downtrodden aphids living in a stump nearby. He felt the weight of his decision more keenly than the first beetle. Responsibility loomed in his heart. He wanted badly to do what was proper.

Time passed. The first beetle was happy, and his family prospered. He was able to build on his reserve and increase its size. Occasionally he gave to the aphids, but only when the impulse came purely, not out of a sense of moral necessity. Though the offerings weren’t enormous, the aphids felt blessed by him.

The second beetle was less happy. Every week, without fail, he gave scores of his trove away to the aphids, but did it with resentment and scorn. He gave so much that he suffered: his health was poor and his clothes were in tatters. Not only that, but he had less to give away as time went on, since he didn’t husband and grow his stock like the first beetle. The aphids, while happy at first to receive such generous alms, were soon confused and hurt by his bitterness and muttering. They felt oppressed by him.
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A maggot was feasting on the decaying flesh of a dead king.

Nearby, a tick, who was busy feasting on a living king, called out to the maggot: “Maggot: you’re crazy. Why are you eating from a filthy corpse when you can taste the sweet blood of the living?”

At that moment the king, oppressed by the tick for years, in a fit of despair lit his body on fire.