Words of wisdom from the little prince
Today is the tenth anniversary of the day that my ex-girlfriend and I met online for the first time. She and I had a great thing going in the beginning, but it eventually turned sour, with the ultimate result that our breakup was not an amicable one. Normally I’m able to keep my emotions in check and let the anniversary pass without much regard for the day’s significance. But today has been different, not just because of the milestone but also because it showed how thoughtless people can be.
As I usually do, I went to Starbucks to mark the occasion. However, this particular Starbucks had permanently closed off an upstairs seating area, and the tables downstairs were all occupied. Somehow it isn’t the same to order something at a Starbucks and not be able to have the meal there--especially if you want to be alone. Then I went to the mall across the street and found its food court’s tables all occupied. My only remaining course of action was to go to a chair or bench in one of the mall’s corridors--and all of them were occupied to some degree. So, after having spent the last twenty minutes or so trying to find a place to sit down, I finally sat on a bench beside a garbage can and got set up to have my comfort food.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the janitors came by and wanted to remove the garbage can lid so he could replace the garbage bag inside--and this after I’d just sat down and put my food on top of it. How cruel could he be to think his job to be important and my need for emotional space not to be?
Let me share something with you from Antoine de St. Exupéry’s The Little Prince, where a similar situation occurs between the prince and the narrator character. The narrator is busy working on his airplane engine, and considers it to be “something serious.”
Annoyed, and pale with rage, the prince says: “I know a planet inhabited by a red-faced gentleman. He’s never smelled a flower. He’s never looked at a star. He’s never loved anyone. He’s never done anything except add up numbers. And all day long he says over and over, just like you, ‘I’m a serious man! I’m a serious man!’ And that puffs him up with pride. But he’s not a man at all--he’s a mushroom!...
“For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it’s not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It’s not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It’s no more serious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’s doing--that isn’t important?
“If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere...’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”
My ex-girlfriend was that unique flower to me. While it’s true the janitor could not have foreseen my situation, there was nothing on the planet to prevent him from anticipating that I would need my emotional space. Could he not have moved on to the rest of his garbage cans and then come back to the one I was sitting beside fifteen minutes or so later?
You cannot imagine how hurt I was--not only at the janitor’s cruelty but at his refusal to apologize once I explained what today was for me. He didn’t care: “I have a job to do.” Well, I had a relationship to mourn. And in his eyes that wasn’t important?
The little prince begins to sob, just as I was on the brink of doing. “Night had fallen,” writes the narrator. “I dropped my tools. What did I care about my hammer, about my bolt, about thirst and death? There was, on one star, on one planet, on mine, the Earth, a little prince to be consoled!...How clumsy I felt! I didn’t know how to reach him, where to find him...It’s so mysterious, the land of tears.”
Words of wisdom. I wish more people would follow them...
As I usually do, I went to Starbucks to mark the occasion. However, this particular Starbucks had permanently closed off an upstairs seating area, and the tables downstairs were all occupied. Somehow it isn’t the same to order something at a Starbucks and not be able to have the meal there--especially if you want to be alone. Then I went to the mall across the street and found its food court’s tables all occupied. My only remaining course of action was to go to a chair or bench in one of the mall’s corridors--and all of them were occupied to some degree. So, after having spent the last twenty minutes or so trying to find a place to sit down, I finally sat on a bench beside a garbage can and got set up to have my comfort food.
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the janitors came by and wanted to remove the garbage can lid so he could replace the garbage bag inside--and this after I’d just sat down and put my food on top of it. How cruel could he be to think his job to be important and my need for emotional space not to be?
Let me share something with you from Antoine de St. Exupéry’s The Little Prince, where a similar situation occurs between the prince and the narrator character. The narrator is busy working on his airplane engine, and considers it to be “something serious.”
Annoyed, and pale with rage, the prince says: “I know a planet inhabited by a red-faced gentleman. He’s never smelled a flower. He’s never looked at a star. He’s never loved anyone. He’s never done anything except add up numbers. And all day long he says over and over, just like you, ‘I’m a serious man! I’m a serious man!’ And that puffs him up with pride. But he’s not a man at all--he’s a mushroom!...
“For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it’s not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It’s not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It’s no more serious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’s doing--that isn’t important?
“If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere...’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”
My ex-girlfriend was that unique flower to me. While it’s true the janitor could not have foreseen my situation, there was nothing on the planet to prevent him from anticipating that I would need my emotional space. Could he not have moved on to the rest of his garbage cans and then come back to the one I was sitting beside fifteen minutes or so later?
You cannot imagine how hurt I was--not only at the janitor’s cruelty but at his refusal to apologize once I explained what today was for me. He didn’t care: “I have a job to do.” Well, I had a relationship to mourn. And in his eyes that wasn’t important?
The little prince begins to sob, just as I was on the brink of doing. “Night had fallen,” writes the narrator. “I dropped my tools. What did I care about my hammer, about my bolt, about thirst and death? There was, on one star, on one planet, on mine, the Earth, a little prince to be consoled!...How clumsy I felt! I didn’t know how to reach him, where to find him...It’s so mysterious, the land of tears.”
Words of wisdom. I wish more people would follow them...
posted by Jamie at 11:50 PM
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