Flowers Are So Inconsistent…

31 Commentsacts of courage, awareness, conceptual frameworks, courage, Uncategorized
So the little prince, in spite of all the good will that was inseparable from his love, had soon come to doubt her. He had taken seriously words which were without importance, and it made him very unhappy.
“I ought not to have listened to her,” he confided to me one day. “One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity.”
 
And he continued his confidences:
 
“The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything!  I ought to have judged by deeds and  not by words.  She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me.  I ought never to have run away from her…I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent!  But I was too young to know how to love her…” (1)
 

Words fool us and seduce us.

They are symbols of the way we would like things to be.

Or the way we are afraid things are.

And not only other people’s words.

We also seduce and frighten our selves with words,

promising ourselves that we will become the things we admire…

telling ourselves that we’re not afraid…

that we don’t care…

that we’re not hurt…

in the hope that the promise, the intention, the hope, the aspiration – will suffice – but it won’t.

Words are important because they are capable of being symbols but in order for them to be solid and not hollow they have to have substance outside themselves – that’s the nature of a symbol.

All we can rely on – whether its regarding ourselves or others – is action.

Deeds.

It’s all we have.

Let deeds, not words, be your adorning. (2)

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(1)Antoine de Saint Exupéry – The Little Prince.

(2) Bahá’u’lláh – The Hidden Words.

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31 Comments

  5. Yesterday, I wrote a poem about words and the power of the body. We need words, but we cannot divorce them from the flesh and the blood. I do think the Little Prince is being a bit hard on himself though. Afterall, our words do have power, they can hide our most fragrent actions. They can make it so others cannot find us, even when we are standing right in front of them. The words shape the reality, and lead to the imagination.

  6. Yesterday, I wrote a poem about words and the power of the body. We need words, but we cannot divorce them from the flesh and the blood. I do think the Little Prince is being a bit hard on himself though. Afterall, our words do have power, they can hide our most fragrent actions. They can make it so others cannot find us, even when we are standing right in front of them. The words shape the reality, and lead to the imagination.

  11. insular tahiti shared a link to a NYtimes article that talks about fiction and how it affects our brains. How different kinds of words create responses in our brains and can help develop ‘theory of mind’ ( a cornerstone for empathy ).

    I would argue that words are action in this instance, but ultimately what we do, is what has actually happened isn’t it? Regardless of how the words wrap up the actions for historical record…

    Still, your words here, have impact – impact that translates to awareness, and action in our personal lives if we’re reading and engaged. As if words possess potential energy and that they aren’t the action themselves, but rather the transducing agent perhaps?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=all

    1. Thanks, Erik – I agree that they are a type of action (that’s what a spell was) but they are also symbols and have a sort of transcendence as well because of that I think. I will most definitely look at that article – thanks.

  12. insular tahiti shared a link to a NYtimes article that talks about fiction and how it affects our brains. How different kinds of words create responses in our brains and can help develop ‘theory of mind’ ( a cornerstone for empathy ).

    I would argue that words are action in this instance, but ultimately what we do, is what has actually happened isn’t it? Regardless of how the words wrap up the actions for historical record…

    Still, your words here, have impact – impact that translates to awareness, and action in our personal lives if we’re reading and engaged. As if words possess potential energy and that they aren’t the action themselves, but rather the transducing agent perhaps?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=all

    1. Thanks, Erik – I agree that they are a type of action (that’s what a spell was) but they are also symbols and have a sort of transcendence as well because of that I think. I will most definitely look at that article – thanks.

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