I will quote Kafka in my report to the academy!

Soon it will be time for me to submit my annual work report.  I was reminded of that when driving back home last evening, as I was reviewing in my mind the current term that is nearing the end. One more term in the academic year.

Maybe for the annual report I should simply print out Franz Kafka's A Report for an Academy, and leave it to "them" to decide what it means and what I mean by using that story!

Of course, I can't do that!

It is in the professional and social rules of engagement to never engage in calling the others' bluffs.  The emperors are always fully clothed!

So, for now, I am convinced that I will include the following final sentences that Kafka writes to bring the story to an end:

In any case, I don’t want any man’s judgment. I only want to expand knowledge. I simply report. Even to you, esteemed gentlemen of the Academy, I have only made a report.

I can't wait to wrap-up my annual report with those very sentences :)

Over the years, when reading Kafka's writings, or re-reading them, as was the case with with "A report for an academy," Kafka comes across to me more and more of a mystic.  Had he been alive in India, he might have been easily adopted as a guru by many millions, I am convinced.  They don't seem to make intellectuals like him anymore.  Doesn't seem like progress or evolution to me :(