Profile

tsu

Grant Access
Subscribe
Track Account
Private Message
Gift Paid Account

Schrödinger's Cat is Dead

Free Account

Created on 2009-05-04 06:04:40 (#267096), last updated 2012-12-26 (678 weeks ago)

26,575 comments received, 52 comments posted

2,696 Journal Entries, 728 Tags, 2 Memories, 6 Icons Uploaded

View extended profile

About

Name:	Tsu
Birthdate:	May 8
Location:	California, United States

Mini Bio

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I'll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me hurrying back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then look: you see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat..."

The fox fell silent and gazed at the little prince for a long time.

"Please-- tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I haven't much time. I have friends to find and so many things to understand."

"The only things you understand are the things you tame," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me..."

"What do I have to do?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you'll sit down a little ways away from me-- over there-- in the grass. I'll watch you out of the corner of my eye, and you won't say anything. Language is the source of misunderstandings. But day by day, you'll be able to sit a little closer..."

The next day the little prince returned.

"It would have been better to return at the same time," said the fox. "For instance, if you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three. The closer it gets to four, the happier I'll feel. By four I'll be all excited and worried; I'll discover what it costs to be happy! But if you come at any time, I'll never know when my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced whenever they chose, all the days would be the same, and I would never have any vacation at all."

__________

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It's your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wanted to hurt you, but you insisted I tame you..."

"Yes, of course," said the fox.

"But you're going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, of course," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat." And then he added:

"Go look at the roses again. You 'll understand that yours is the only rose in the whole world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a gift of a secret."

__________

The little prince went to look at the roses again.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "You're nothing at all yet. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first met him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is the only fox in the whole world."

And the roses were humbled.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses put together, because she's the one that I watered. Because she's the one that I put under the glass globe. Because she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Because she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three we saved to become butterflies). Because she's the one that I listened to when she complained, when she boasted, or even when she said nothing at all. Because she is my rose."

__________

And he went back to the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. What is important is invisible to the eyes."

"What is important is invisible to the eyes," the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

"It is the time you spent with your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I spent with my rose..." the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget. You become responsible forever for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose..." the little prince repeated, in order to remember.