The Crow and the Cormorant

Once upon a time there was a crow.

The crow was along river one day getting a drink when he noticed a black cormorant floating in the stream. The cormorant would effortlessly glide along, then suddenly dive down and come up with a tasty morsel of some kind, which it extended its beak and long neck to swallow. It would then continue on its effortless glide through the water, until it climbed out of the water to stand on a rock and hold its dark wings out to the side to dry them.

"How beautiful" said the crow. "It's so different from my life. I have to constantly fly around seeking insects and rice grains from the fields, constantly in threat from farmers and cats and bigger birds."

He looked down at himself. "I'm a black bird too!" he suddenly realized. "There's not a reason in the world why I, too, cannot become a cormorant."

So decided, he hopped off his rock perch and jumped into the river, expecting to settle along the top just like the cormorant. Instead, to his surprise, he sank like a rock. He struggled to keep his beak above the water, and barely managed to keep it up as the current of the river washed him ashore none too kindly. He sputtered and shook himself as he crawled back onto the rocks, wet and bedraggled and surely lacking the fish he had seen the cormorant catch and eat with ease. Suddenly he realized that his wet feathers would prevent him from flying if danger approached - and he certainly couldn't swim. He slunk to the edge of the river, hoping the warm sun would quickly dry his feathers.

Crows, he realized, were made to fly high and be clever and dodge farmers and cats and other birds and collect rice and insects - which suddenly sounded like a feast to him. They were never meant to swim.

U no mane suru karasu (The crow imitating the cormorant) - Japanese Proverb

"A crow imitating a cormorant cannot swim, and so will nearly drown. In the same way, every man should be true to his own craft or, in swordsmanship, his own talents and training. Musashi would have us be the cormorant if we are the cormorant, and the crow if we are the crow." - William Scott Wilson, The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi