They say the book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry entitled The Little Prince is for children yet it can also be well suited for kids at heart. Its encompassing thought revolves around the essential things -- no matter how small they are -- that complete the entirety of an individual’s being. Yet one question remains: What is the most essential thing for you?
The Little Prince can be interpreted in so many ways depending on how the reader sees it and your answer to the question above. It, therefore, lies on what matters most to us and how it profoundly affects our perspective of the real world, which influences us to make our own little world. In the story, the little prince left his rose and started to travel to different planets to get over his sadness. He soon knew that flowers do not last forever, and he began to miss the rose he had left behind. However, the little prince found a rose garden, which left him surprised and betrayed because he believed that his rose was the only one of her kind. After all the sadness and betrayal he experienced, the little prince realized that, even though there are many roses, his love for his rose made her unique and that he was, therefore, responsible for her. Like the little prince, we also had experiences of slipping off from what we think is real as we get older and open our eyes to the bigger picture of life. As we continuously traverse the complexity of life and learn new things, we sometimes feel exhausted of how reality hits us down to our core, making us want to return to our perception of reality and dwell on the past simpler times.
Undeniably, society plays a significant role in shaping our perception of reality to the extent that it distorts what reality is and turns into something favored by society, thus causing us to follow dangerous stereotypes and prejudices that can endanger our uniqueness and creative grasps on things.
The little prince's mind is fixed on returning to his rose, and he begins making plans with the snake to head back to his planet. The same kind of realization may also apply to us because living in a reality of chaos consumes the fire within us. As youths, we tend to follow trends and the dictates of other people without really knowing the repercussions of where it can lead us. However, we must never forget to remain connected to what is truly essential for us. As the little prince taught us, no matter how far we go, we’ll always find our way back to what is close to our hearts.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.” These words of the little prince accurately expressed how we are supposed to look at the things we love as something unique, something different from what society dictates us to see, which shall never cease from having our genuine affection for what truly matters.
The danger of stereotypes dancing right in front of our eyes gives us the tendency to give in because its distortion of reality dramatically appeals to us in the sense that it’s no longer aligned to what is true. We think that we ought to follow trends and fads because once we lose track of these things, we feel that we are being left behind, which we sincerely never want to happen, and it should never be the case. Instead, we must get a grip of our senses and evaluate the kind of danger it inhibits to ourselves and, most importantly, to our values as unique individuals.
References:
Lohnes, K. and Lowne, . Cathy (2020, May 27). The Little Prince. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Little-Prince
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