As I sit here contemplating what story to tell as my introduction to Odyssey, I can’t help but return to a matter that has been relentlessly haunting me of late, that of love. Yes, love. I know it is far too often discussed, or at least brought up whether superficially or more deeply for the very reason that it’s haunting, taunting, frustratingly ever-present in the minds of many of us “millennials" as hormones surge, and we begin our searches for that which is and sometimes isn't love, whatever it may actually be. So, here, today I am going to join the conversation, and take my hand at presenting what love is, and what it means using the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry from his classic novel Le Petite Prince (The Little Prince) to aid me in my possibly foolish attempt to define love at it’s most basic level.
In The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry uses the friendship between a boy, the Little Prince, and a wild fox to express essentially how love begins, grows, and lives on forever. How sadness is inevitable when falling in love, and how love itself wouldn’t be as sweet as it is were it not for the pain one risks experiencing when one inevitably loses the one one loves.
The fox and the Little Prince begin, as we all do, as acquaintances. Then, the fox asks the little prince if he would tame him, and the little prince replies, “What does tamed mean?” and the fox simply but all too profoundly responds, "It's something that's been too often neglected. It means to create ties.” He then goes on to explain;
"To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....”
Taming another, or developing ties with another binds you together so that you “shall need each other.” That need of one another epitomizes the initial idea of love. In Saint-Exupéry’s novel, love is created when a fox decides to see before him more than “a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys,” and to develop ties with him that make them “unique in all the world” to the fox. This is what I would refer to as amiable love, but, truthfully, that is what all love initially blooms from. You start by finding another and getting to know them, to "tame" them, and gradually become more and more unique to one another as your connection develops and intensifies.
This connection that comes out of taming another will always exist between you, but loss of the other is also inevitable at one point or another. You may not always have that fox sitting right beside you, but it’s important to hold on to the fact that you will always have the memories you have of one another. When the fox expresses that which the little prince has given him, he says, he will always have the corn fields. Whenever he sees the corn fields he will smile as they will remind him of the little prince’s hair, and will thus remind him of the little prince and the memories they shared and will always share with one another. The fox similarly expresses to the little prince that;
“You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them...In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night...You - only you - will have stars that can laugh.”
The fox gave the prince laughing stars. With the relationship they developed, they gave each other that which no one else can take away, memories of each other, of laughter, and of a happiness that will always be there to make the little prince smile. Life is about making everlasting memories, and memories are enhanced by those you come to know, let into you life, and need. These memories are worth the possible pain of loss.
One risks the possibility of loss when opening one's heart up to someone, and when the time comes to go in different directions whether for a moment, or forever, it feels as if one has been torn apart. One's heart breaks, and one enter a realm of existence wherein one feels as if no one else could possibly understand the pain, the loss, the loneliness, the heartbreak, despite the fact that most everyone must on some level understand. The little prince expressed this well after the fox's departure, saying, “I did not know how to reach him, how to catch up with him... The land of tears is so mysterious.” The fox had gone. The prince was alone, uncertain, frantic, confused, caught in the mysterious land of tears, of loss. But, “One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.” Such is the sweetness of falling in love, making ties, being tamed. It is this risk that makes the love you create even more precious, unique, and dear.
In these times it is important to remember that as Saint-Exupéry says, “time soothes all sorrows.” Taming another is worth the risk of losing them. Shared memories are priceless. I implore you all to make them. Continue going through life “taming” others, and discovering what makes everyone you come to know unique to you. Open your heart knowing that in doing so you may “run the risk of weeping a little,” but that’s okay. Finding company in the desert that life can seem to be is worth the risk of being alone again. Once one has tamed and been tamed by another, one is never truly alone. The Little Prince has the stars, and the fox has the cornfields forever and always as will you.
