Kermit's ideas about our essence and about growing up remind me of the nature of daemons in Philip Pullman's *His Dark Materials* trilogy. (I really enjoyed the first book, *The Golden Compass*; the others, less so.) In Lyra's world, this "inner tadpole" is actually external and can come in many different animal shapes. As a child, your daemon can change shapes, but as you grow up your daemon takes on a fixed shape.

My daemon is a fox named Polly. :~)