Another of the naysayers here, I just found this bland and boring. If you are going to have a very metaphorical piece I tend to think you need interesting characters to hang it on. Otherwise it's just terribly uninteresting, whatever you have to say.
I generally dislike the argument "it's worth the effort" it implies that the reader/listener is at fault for not putting in enough effort, being too stupid or illeducated to understand it or being lessor somehow fir not 'getting' a more literary piece.
If I want to study philosophy and have to put in a lot of effort, I'll read a philosophical text. To quote AAaron Sorkin "An artist's job is to captivate you for however long as we've asked for your attention. If we stumble into truth, we got lucky." this is the nugget of where it failed for me.