I came across a great post entitled “Why it may be worth becoming more like a child” on the slow leadership blog. The main reasons to become more child-like laid out in this post were – being more imaginative, being encouraged to learn, forgiven for mistakes and becoming more creative. Carmine Coyote, the post’s author, asks what would work be like if people started to be a bit less adult? She argues it could be more exploratory, experimental, exciting and passionate. I like this post, and agree with it too. But let me tell you a little story, because this post fits in with one of those strange, synchronicity moments for me.
I regularly spend time in France. My French language skill isn’t great. I get by, understanding most of what I hear, but I’m not good at expressing myself in French. I love to read French however and I’m not too bad at that. I take my time and consult a dictionary when I need to. I never let a visit to France pass without a good browse in the bookshop. French language books are SO different from the English language ones I find in the UK. It’s really like a whole other world for me. Last month, as I browsed in one of my favourite bookshops, “Vents du Sud“, up past the market in Aix-en-Provence, I picked up an interesting-looking book, entitled “Donner un sens a l’existence” by Jean-Philippe Ravoux. I guess you could translate that as “Making sense of existence”, but “donner” means to give, so it’s more “Giving sense to existence”. I am convinced that one of the essential characteristics of human beings is that we are meaning-seeking/meaning-creating animals. A closer look revealed that this book is by an Aix-based philosophe and is an exposition of the work of Antoine Saint-Exupery – in particular, “Le Petit Prince” (The Little Prince) and “Citadelle” (Wisdom of the Sands). “Le Petit Prince” is THE top selling book in the world, second only to the Bible. I bought it, and I’ve been reading, underlining and annotating it since. I SO enjoyed it! I also decided it was time to refresh my memory of “Le Petit Prince” so re-read that too (first in French, then I bought myself a new English language copy and read that too, in case I didn’t understand anything in the French version). Well, I finished it during a train journey yesterday, and I’ve already gone back to the beginning to re-read the parts I’ve marked up for myself. I’m intending to write a few posts about the main themes over the coming days. But here’s the connection and the strange part –
The main theme of Le Petit Prince is how child-like innocence and wonder can challenge the adult view of reality. The little prince questions everything. He doesn’t just take things for granted. Ravoux claims that Saint-Exupery based this attitude on Descartes‘ “Discours de la Methode” (but more of that in another post!) Through his wonder and questioning, the little prince challenges our rather unthinking ways of living, our attitudes to power, money, belief and so on, and this questioning makes us “wake up” (become heroes not zombies?)
My head is full of these thoughts just now, so what a surprise to stumble this very day upon a post about becoming child-like!
What an amazing and curious world we live in! I love how it continually surprises me!
Yeah, so true! I’ve never read the book yet but have always thought about this myself as well. I prefer “childlike” over what I see is “childish” behavior from many adults – there is a vast difference between the two seemingly similar terms I think. The former is indeed something we should all aspire towards.
oh yes Steve, there’s a WORLD of difference between “child-like” and “childish”! Strange, huh?
[…] Saint-Exupery, in “The Little Prince”, has this theme running right through his brilliant, thought-provoking little story. The philosopher, Ravoux, says that the main theme of “Le Petit Prince” is the difficulty we find in making connections. We all experience the world from the first person perspective, and we have no way of experiencing the world from another person’s perspective. Not wholly. Not fully. We use language and fashion stories to try to convey our views and our experiences to others. We use imagination and empathy to try and put ourselves in others’ shoes, but it’s not easy. […]
[…] 15, 2008 by bobleckridge One of the key scenes in Le Petit Prince is where the little fox appears. The fox declines the little prince’s invitation to play […]