A canary in a cage. A charming sight for your decor, not so much a charming metaphor for your soul, trapped behind the cubicle bars. However, some souls were simply built to broken, designed for moldability and being told what to do–it’s easier than actually fucking up your life yourself, which can be much more of a challenge creatively speaking.
When you set a canary free, it doesn’t know what to do with its newfound liberty. It often dies. Its sensitivity, in fact, helmed the bird’s usage by coal miners to detect whether dangerous gases (apart from asshole ones) had built up enough in the tunnel. With the caged canary in front of the miner primed to expire with enough warning for the workers to get out in time, it did the most important grunt work. But no one reveres or even values those who perform grunt work.
The bottom line: you die in or out of the cage. The difference is, you sacrifice yourself for a much less noble cause by staying inside.