“Who are you?” the little prince asked.
“I’m a fox,” the fox said.
“Come and play with me,” the little prince proposed. “I’m feeling so sad.”
“I can’t play with you,” the fox said. “I’m not tamed.”
“What does tamed mean?”
“It means, “to create ties”… For me you’re only a little boy just like hundred thousand other little boys.And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You’ll be the only boy in the world for me. I’ll be the only fox in the world for you…”
“I’m beginning to understand,” the little prince said. ” There’s a flower…I think she’s tamed me…”
“My life is monotonous.I hunt chickens; people hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. So I’m rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I’ll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…”
The fox fell silent and stared at the little prince for a long while. “Please…tame me!” he said.
“What do I have to do?” asked the little prince.
“You have to be very patient,” the fox answered. “First you’ll sit down a little ways away from me, over there, in the grass. I’ll watch you out of the corner of my eye, and you won’t say anything. Language is the source of misunderstandings. But day by day, you’ll be able to sit a little closer…”
And when the time to leave was near:
“Ah!” the fox said.”I shall weep”
“It’s your own fault,” the little prince said. “I never wanted to harm you but you insisted I tame you. Then you get nothing out of it?”
“I get something,” said the fox said, “because of the color of the wheat. And I’ll make you the gift of a secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes”
This is an extract from “The Little Prince” , a book that touched me so deeply that I just had to share some of it. You see, this is one of those treasures that you cant keep to yourself. In his dedication, the author asks for the forgiveness of children because he dedicated the book to an adult. And he corrected by saying ” To Leon Werth, when he was a little boy”
And I guess by doing that, he dedicated it to all the grown ups asking them to remember how it was to think and love and live as only a child truly can.
“One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me…”
“Men have forgotten this truth. But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
The deeper I try to understand things I am always brought back to the simplest stuff. We are nothing if we cannot give and receive love, in all its forms. We are never really complete if we cannot share ourselves. Yet sometimes we are vain, or too frightened to let anyone near and sometimes we are just broken beyond repair and it becomes too hard to think less and feel more. To Trust. To Trust your own heart in the first place. To trust you can allow yourself to stand facing the wind and step outside the safety of solitude.To give. To give and not wait for anything. To give with peace and a smile. To accept that things end sometimes. To forgive. To forgive oneself too.
But is it possible to love without possession? Without expectations?
Here I am, wild and raw. Bruised to the soul. Frightened. But I stay up at night watching strangers talk to each other because I need some company but am too scared to take a further step closer. I have systematically cut off almost all threads that linked me to people, friends, family. But I am only happy when someone stands with open arms saying, come you fool. Then, I am that child again, who can trust, who can laugh, who can love. And later, I forget.
Maybe, I too, need to be tamed.
When I was a child, I just wanted to grow up.I thought grown ups had answers and knew best how to protect themselves. But I guess grown ups grow more doubts and fears by growing.
Whatever you do…. don’t follow these steps… and listen to the little prince.