On The Little Prince

Having watched the movie 'The Little Prince', I came to know that it is based on the famous novella  by Antoine Saint Exupery, having the same title, so I set myself to read that novella. As always, I could find a right time to read it, but recently I managed to read it. The first surprise came with a storyline. It is has very little resemblance with that of film. The book is about a prince, depicted as a naive young boy, who lives in a small planet with small mountains and the rose. Somehow, he sets to leave his home planet, and leaves the rose, which is his beloved. He meets all kinds of characters in his journey and learns much about life. There are few lessons that I learned from this book, which I think are worthy of sharing. 

The first lesson is about value we give to the things around us. There are different ways to assign values to things or people. The most common is economic way. Prices of most objects are determined by markets, while the value of people are mainly determined by the economic value that they are capable of generating. For this reason, we respect CEOs, as their decisions can bring millions of dollars, while the decision of an office clerk might not bring as much. There are also values that are determined by society or an agreement of majority of people. We tend to respect scientists even though some types of research bring no immediate economic benefits. We do this, because majority of people believe that these things are important to investigate and to learn. Apart from these two valuation systems, there is also a personal approach: how do I value a particular object. Observe that a personal value might be very different from above two. For instance, a child of office clerk might love his father dearly, even though his father might generate relatively low economic output or have relatively low social status. The prince has realised that the personal value of the things are determined by the energy, love and time he puts into those things. In the case of his rose, he has put so many hours to take care of his rose that it became dear to him. When he encounters a valley with thousands roses, they catch his breath for some time. However, he then realises that those roses mean not so much to him, no matter what other people might think of them. 

The second lesson has to do with a dichotomy between following one's desire, which I call recklessness in this case, and being responsible. In modern times people tend to value their freedom. Society tells us to celebrate our differences, take pride in our uniqueness, and think outside of the box. In this kind of environment, it becomes easy to fall into a trap of recklessness. It becomes easy to ignore voices and feelings of other people, and to follows one's desires. This kind of behaviour tend to satisfy one's soul for a short time, however, as time goes along, a sense of remorse may replace that of satisfaction. At one point, a little prince regrets leaving his rose alone. He remembers how vulnerable his rose is and tries to return to his planet to take care of his rose. It shows that being responsible person tends to give one a sense of serenity and peace, as one knows that one has done the right thing, instead of following one's fancies. I guess that I need to learn this lesson.