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KAFKA'S BEFORE THE LAW

A man comes to a gate, seeking entry to the Law. The gatekeeper says: “Not yet.”

So he waits. For years. For decades. He grows old beside the gate, peering in but never entering. Only at the end, as life fades, he asks, "Why has no one else come here?"

And the gatekeeper replies: “This entrance was meant only for you. Now I shall close it.”

The man never realized—The barrier was never the gate, or the guard. It was the belief that he couldn’t walk through it.

Frank Kafka (adapted)

Listen to an illustrated reading of this classic Frank Kafka parable, narrated by the inimitable Orson Welles.