(I apologize in advance for typos)
The Little Prince is an extraordinary book that is able to transcend age. Its power to ignite thought is remarkable.
Dik already summarized the whole plot of the story. I would like to focus on the Little Prince’s exploration of the different planets. He encountered several people: the king, the vain man, the drunkard, the businessman, the geographer and the lamplighter. The Little Prince found one thing in common in all of them except for the lamplighter. They all thought of no one but themselves.
The king he encountered was so amazed by the fact the he had a subject in the presence of the Little Prince. He asked the prince to be a judge of himself. He said, “Then you shall pass judgment on yourself. That is the hardest thing of all. It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others.” I like this statement because it is a genuine truth. People are so enthralled by the fact that can easily judge others. They mislead themselves into thinking that judging is the best way to finding a spot in this world. They forget that the person who they need to judge is no other than themselves. This is a universal truth I’m guilty of failing big time at.
The prince said that vain men never hear anything but praise. It’s so simple, yet full of depth. It’s like saying that all of us are vain in some sense because each one of us chooses what we want to listen to. We always hear, but we don’t always listen. It’s a simple, straight-forward lesson.
The drunkard and the businessman were found out to be the same. Both were going around a circle, not finding a purpose for what they do best- drink for the former and count for the latter. What the prince found out is a lack of reason and a lack of sense that most people are trapped in. We always give excuses and reasons to justify our actions, to show that it’s the better thing to do, only to find out we are nowhere far from where we started.
The character of the geographer for me exemplifies the difference between the book smart and the street smart. They say that the street smart are those who have explored and wandered enough to have gained so much knowledge about the daily happenings of life. They go beyond books. They extend to reality. While the book smart, on the other hand, are the reliable ones when it comes to trivial facts, always easy to memorize, yet unfortunately, what they know only goes as far as what they read. They lack something that the street smart has- the ability.
The geographer was the one who made the prince realize that he has left his flower alone in his planet to live, or better yet to die. By introducing the word “Ephemeral,” meaning threatened by imminent disappearance, the prince realized that what he has left behind, what he has taken care of all his life, is not eternal. What strikes me in this situation is the fact that while the geographer chose to make his life revolve around eternal things, the Little Prince chose to give his life for something that will not last forever. Yet, what the prince had was definitely more valuable.
At the end of every journey, the prince would always say how grown-ups are quite extraordinary. The Little Prince for me symbolizes a fresh point of view on things. I loved how he would always say he only has 3 volcanoes in his possession, one of which is extinct, and a flower, yet he feels like the richest person in the world. When he mentions the extinct volcano, he always says the line “who knows?” It is that hope in a supposedly dead entity that I admire most about him. The things that most of us would think are useless have so much value for the prince, only because he chooses to think that there is more to them that what we have come to believe they could offer. He was also describes as a person who would never stop asking the question until it is answered. It is that yearning to learn and understand that has helped the prince unravel the truths and the learning he has come to gained throughout that journey. It is that constant and relentless pursuit of answers that allowed him to discover.
My favorite part (which is surprising after my very long blog already) is the prince’s encounter with the fox. The word “tame” is the one word in the story that I believe has changed its meaning for me after reading the book. I usually associate the word with animals. Now, I realize it goes beyond that. They defined the word to mean “to create ties” and this meaning has brought a deeper sense to relationships in general. The prince, upon reaching the planet Earth, is dumbstruck at the sight of a thousand roses when all his life he only knew of the existence of one. He thought that the rose he has taken care of all his life is nothing special at all, only part of the ordinary group of flowers. But the fox proved to disagree. He said that because he has tamed that particular rose of his, it will stand out to be the only one amidst the thousand others.
People always find themselves in that situation- a struggle to see past the similarities of the people, places, and things we encounter everywhere and find something special, find something that we could say unique to us. What seems to be ordinary to others is special to us only because we choose and decide to make them so. It’s the time you’ve devoted to them that makes them special and that in turn makes you responsible for them.
A very long sharing, yet I feel I haven’t expressed them all. More to come then!
-Nik
