The Beautiful Problem of Being Human

A one-line paradoxical aphorism written in 1917 captured the restlessness of being human

Author

Zaid Pathan
July 27, 2025

Hello to all the regular and new readers.
This is the 10th edition of Think About It.

You will have to excuse me if this edition leaves you with more questions than answers. I never promised answers anyway. And questions are good. 

That’s a strange way to start a newsletter. I know. OK. It’s because today we will be thinking about a Franz Kafka quote. And it’s hardly ever straightforward when it’s Kafka, right?

So, I’m sure many of you will have come across this quote:

I’m a cage, in search of a bird.

— Franz Kafka

Time and again, this keeps circulating on social media. This is at #3 on the Goodreads page of Franz Kafka quotes.

Now, I have read a few Books and a collection of letters by Kafka, and I have never come across this quote. I wondered where it came from then. So I did some research, and what I discovered surprised me.

The actual quote is:

A cage went in search of a bird.

This appears in the book called The Zürau Aphorisms.

Apparently, Kafka wrote this when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which led him to leave his insurance job in Prague and spend eight months recuperating in the village of Zürau (now known as Siřem in Czechia) with his sister Ottla.  

Before leaving Zürau (or shortly after), Kafka picked his favorite notes and copied them onto separate sheets. He never gave them a title. After Kafka’s death, his friend Max Brod published them in 1931.

Now, getting back to the quote, I assume that “I’m a cage, in search of a bird,” feels more personal and relatable even though it’s different from the original one. It still keeps the essence of the original one and doesn’t affect the core meaning. And this is the quote that is widely known, so I will use this one.

So, in just eight words (in both versions), Kafka has delivered one of the most twisted and haunting paradoxes.

There are clearly two symbols here:

The Cage: It typically represents constraint, emptiness, or structure without life.
It's hollow, defined by its lack of what it’s meant to hold.

The Bird: It is the very opposite of a cage. A bird may symbolize freedom, spirit, life, creativity, inspiration, the soul, or a sense of purpose. Or it could be love, meaning, faith, or even God, depending on how far you want to stretch the metaphor.

Normally, a bird longs to escape a cage. That’s a classic symbol of freedom vs. confinement. We’ve all heard that before. But Kafka turns this upside down.

Kafka calls himself a cage here. That, I think, means he is someone who feels hollow, empty, or incomplete.

He is describing his existential angst. He feels that he was meant to hold something meaningful. He doesn’t say what, but I can assume it could be love, purpose, belief, or truth. He felt vacant, desperate, and wandering.

Perhaps he wasn’t even sure what the ‘cage’ was meant to contain, only that it was meant to contain something.

Think about it - what is a cage without a bird? It's just meaningless bars and wires. It has no function, no identity, no reason to exist. Kafka calls himself that purposeless structure, desperately seeking the thing that will make him whole.

Kafka’s quote feels deceptively simple, wildly poetic, and existentially gutting. And, for some reason, the interpretation I just wrote feels incomplete or pretty straightforward.

I mean, a bird is not supposed to be caged. A cage takes away the freedom of the bird. And there’s no guarantee that a cage will find a bird. Now, if we consider that the bird represents purpose, inspiration, love, etc., does that mean Kafka was doomed to not find what he was looking for?

Another interpretation can be from an artistic perspective. Here, we can assume that by cage Kafka meant an opinion, and by bird, he meant open-mindedness. 

People often get trapped by their own ideas. Opinions spread like rumours. They can be loud, complicated, and tempting. And once someone adopts one, they become a cage.

From inside, they see the world differently. They’re no longer free; now, everything revolves around their fixed perspective.

Maybe Kafka thought that he was consumed by opinions (again, I’m assuming that these opinions/views might be those that approve the status quo). He was not truly himself. He longed to become that. 

In another way, the cage can also mean some kind of identity or category (e.g., Nationality, class, job role, religion, political identity, “this is who I am”, call it whatever you want).

We cling to them because they give protection and a sense of belonging. It's like building walls around ourselves for protection. But what happens when we become too comfortable being the cage?

We confine ourselves to the same mindset. We miss out on learning, growth, and different experiences. But over time, these protective structures can become rigid. We get comfortable, but we also get stuck. And there comes a time when we do realise that.

Perhaps that’s what Kafka realised, and he was searching for a bird that symbolises freedom, spontaneity, the ability to explore and grow. All those qualities people sacrifice for security: adventure, creativity, the lightness of just being yourself without all the structures.

It’s even absurd to think that here, maybe Kafka makes us believe that a cage can grow wings and soar, seeking a bird.

So, which interpretation feels right to you?

Or do you think there can be another interpretation? (In that case, I’m very eager to know, you must let me know - just leave a comment or reply to this email).

That’s all for this issue. I hope you enjoyed this one and have some questions. Remember, questions are important!

See you all next week.

Until then
Stay curious

Zaid

(PS: If you enjoyed reading this, then forward it to someone who you think will like to read it as well 😄 )

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