Since a long time ago that I've dreamed of having my own little business. A handicraft one, where I could set free my creativity and feel fulfilled.
It took me a long time to do it, partly due to a process of disbelief that I had to overcome and partly because of the simple but arduous task of putting it into action.
“The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
So, to start, I choose to do some little prince's inspired pieces because its imaginary world has an aura of beauty and pureness that gives me hope and inspiration. Moreover, the watercolor illustrations in the book, are so simple and loveable, that I wanted to replicate somehow its atmosphere.
The last time I've read the book The little prince was a long time ago, but it engraved in me a melancholic idea about it, that I attribute both to the tone of the book and its author's life, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I don't know why I had this idea since I knew little about Saint-Exupéry. So went to look for some information about him.
“We don’t ask to be eternal beings. We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
While reading about him, taking the information from different sources, I realized that there are inconsistencies regarding his personality. I confess that I was taken by surprise, as I held him as being some sort of a pure big little prince. For sure, he wasn't perfect, and to what extent or in what way he fell apart of being this supra human ideal, I do not know. Perhaps this is an important lesson that I should retain: not to put such a weight of perfection on the shoulders of the ones we admire just because we admire them. Maybe it's our need for extraordinary examples to light our way, forgetting that we all have our lunar side. Nonetheless, the good things are there, and depending on us, they can work as powerful tools in our life.
“Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the writer of one of the world's best sellers and most translated books, The little prince (Le Petit Prince), was born in 1900 in Lyon, in an aristocratic, impoverished family. Besides a writer, an illustrator, and a reporter, he was also a commercial pilot, having worked for the Aéropostal, a French airline company to transport mail, and served as a military reconnaissance pilot during World War II, having survived several crashes. He had a full but short life - his airplane disappeared in 1944 over the Mediterranean sea, most probably shot down by an enemy fighter.
From 1940, when France signed the armistice, Saint-Exupéry exiled himself in the United States until 1943. It was during this time that he wrote The little prince. It came as a suggestion from his publisher's wife, that asked him to write a children's book. So he did.
“The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The little prince
The Little Prince is a novella, with a fable tonic, presented with watercolor illustrations by Saint Exupéry. It has a poignant humanist nature, Saint-Exupéry was a pursuer of the meaning of the human crises. It was published in 1943, one year before the disappearance of Saint-Exupéry, and it seems like a prelude to it. Yet, as in all other of his books, the author took his inspiration from real-life events.
It tells the story of a little boy with golden curly hair, coming from his tiny planet, the Asteroid B-612, where he left his beloved rose. The story has a narrator, a pilot, that finds himself stranded in the desert, after an airplane crash - Saint-Exupéry had such an accident, crashing down in the Sahara, having spent four days together with his co-pilot, until they were found by a Beduin who rescued them.
The little boy goes from planet to planet, encountering in each one of these, a peculiar character, that represents an imperfection or a weakness that we can sorely find in human behavior. It's a blunt criticism of our social organization. He pervaded the story with the imagination and fantasy of children.
Never before this journey has the little boy met adults in his life, and his thoughts of them aren't the best: he sees them as narrow-minded, with a lack of imagination, and obstinate.
In Asteroid B-612, (B-612 - being the serial number of an airplane that Saint-Exupéry flew), the little prince has the company of a beautiful rose which he adores, but soon after he finds that the rose has lied to him, he leaves his planet to pursue the true meaning of life.
For Saint-Exupéry, the exploration both of the outside world and the inside world has the same important role in an honest search for an ultimate answer that could sum up all our life quests.
One couldn't suffice without the other.
When the little prince reaches the planet earth, he comes across a garden of roses, which makes him feel disappointed, for he taught that his rose was the only one existing. But with the help of a fox he encounters, he comes to know that even if there are many roses, it's the love he has for the rose that makes her unique.
The character of the rose, it is said, is inspired by Saint- Exupéry's wife, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry. They had a troubled marriage, but even so, it seems that Antoine regarded her as his true love.
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
When he gets to meet the pilot, alone and hopeless in the desert, he asks him to draw a sheep for him. They become friends and spend the next few days together, with the little prince talking about his life. When they run out of water, they go to search for a well in the desert, which they find.
Afterward, accepting the proposal of a snake that he had previously met, the little prince plans to return home and to his rose that night. Before leaving, he lets the pilot know that now the stars have a special meaning for him because he will know that his little friend is living in one of them. And so, in that night, the little prince returns to his home and rose.
At the end of the book, a doubt remains: has the little prince really returned to his planet after the snake bite? I guess the answer will depend on whether or not we have a little prince living in us, keeping our inner garden free from the menacing baobab trees. I think we will see him around.
“All grown-ups were once children... but only a few of them remember it.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Scale of Values
With his aviator life came his writing life. He didn't separate them, one was dependent upon the other. All of his books originated in his airborne reflections. His friends, and their experiences, inspired him to write about courage, sacrifices, and dedication. The capacity that a man has to truly dedicate his life to a greater good, to exceed himself and honor his duty of embracing whatever it comes in the way of such responsibility, was of paramount importance to Saint-Exupéry.
Flying pioneers routes for sure would make a deep impression on anyone, even more, at a time when the aircraft enginery was incipient and the navigation instruments were archaic. Alone in the air, surrounded by the immensity of the sky and all it has to offer, facing the forces of nature, surely is a good hatcher for philosophical reflections. It's tragic, poetic, beautiful, inspirational, all of which are underlying in Saint-Exupéry's books.
“I am who I am and I have the need to be.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Besides The little prince, Saint-Exupéry wrote five more books, having his merit recognized almost immediately: he won the Prix Fémina - Vie Heuresse, in 1931, for his second book, Vol de nuit (Night Flight). And his third volume, Terre des hommes (Wind, sand, and stars) got the Grand Prix de L'Académie Française. Le petit prince (The little prince) was his fifth one, written in 1943, and it's his most successful work, famous worldwide, still being read by children and adults.
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