Wait a minute, it is not true, not fair, to claim that this man has no relation with my life at all. As I mentioned in my first chitchat with BYJ about relationship, I believed that we do have a relationship because I spent time and energy on this man. Some people may not agree with this, because as in a "normal" sense of relationship, it involves both parties, it should be two way "communication", but here I am talking alone in the internet cloud without hearing an echo, exposing emotions to an imaginary listener. Don't I look as silly as a goose? Now to analyze this relationship, let me share with you an excerpt from a well known fairy tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupery called "The Little Prince". As you can see from the link, "The Little Prince is a children's fairy-tale written in simple language, however it is actually a profound and deeply moving tale, written in riddles and laced with philosophy and poetic metaphor". It is the chapter 20 and chapter 21 that I ponder the most, for they are so much related to how I feel about my relationship with HRH.
As a summary, the little prince had his little planet where he owned 3 little volcanoes and one little rose. One day after getting tired of the rose's torturing requests for his attentions, the little prince decided to leave his planet and explore the universe to "gain some experiences", there in chapter 20 he arrived on Earth and found a garden of five thousand roses that all looked just like his flower at home which he thought was so unique.
But it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men.
"Good morning," he said. He was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.
"Good morning," said the roses.
The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower.
"Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.
"We are roses," the roses said. And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!
"She would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should see that... she would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I should be obliged to pretend that I was nursing her back to life, for if I did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die..."
Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees-- and one of them perhaps extinct forever... that doesn't make me a very great prince..." And he lay down in the grass and cried.
While he was crying, a fox appeared and started a quite profound conversation and relationship with him that I enjoy savoring upon time after time. Here are some snippets that I would love to share, actually I found out later that I almost included the whole chapter 21 here, it's the old me again - copy down everything I like for my record. Please be patient to read on, I am sure you'll go away with a shower of peace and refreshment.
"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."
"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added: "What does that mean, 'tame'?"
..."It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."
(Isn't this tie what we have called relationship here? I am thinking I am in the process of taming and being tamed in this bae journey)
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
(HRH is unique to me after I went through these "tame" activities, i.e. watching his works, reading about him, sharing thoughts with bae sisters, all in all, care about him. The sad thing is, I am not unique to him 'coz he has never tamed me, haha...)
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me..."
....
"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, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..." The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please, tame me!" he said.(Isn't it beautiful to read about the fox talking about the sound of the steps and the color of the wheat fields. Now I think HRH actually DID tame me, he has tamed me through his arduous performing work, that any tiny little thing, such as a bright smile, a beautiful scenery, the falling of snow will bring me back the thought of him. And likewise, I shall love to listen to the OSTs from his works)
"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."
"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..."
(Don't we think that we understand HRH more than the people who are not in the Bae family, since we have "tamed" him. We have spent so much time reading about him. This is also true for the friendships I established with our bae sisters in this bae taming journey. I have spent time conversing with them such that we became friends, we understand each other and are special to each other.)
"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me, like that, in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."
(BYJ taming needs extra patience!)
The next day the little prince came back.
"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."
(So HRH has been pretty good giving us timelines of his work releases, aren't we happier and happier as the hour advances toward the release date of the TWSSG!)
"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 at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."
(I like his description and demand of the rite.)
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near...
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," 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 fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
(When people tell you that your bae journey is vain and void, just simply ignore, this bae journey has done good to you, you know it from your heart. One day we may say farewell to our prince, we may cry but we never regret that we had this baeutiful experience in this life.)
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses. "You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed. "You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you, the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.
(Because it is he that I stayed up late to watch his works; because it is he that I rewind and rewind, studied and studied his every little motion and expression; because it is he that I create and maintain this blog in the odd hours; because it is he that I purchased DVDs and OSTs that I have never done before; because it is he that I went extra miles to translate fellow fans' articles in the spirit of sharing; because it is through taming him that I got to befriended with a few nice bae sisters. Because he is my prince.)
And he went back to meet the fox. "Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
(Yes, it is the time that I "wasted" for HRH that makes my prince so important.)
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose..." said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
(It is scary to think that I am responsible to what I have tamed. I can understand it by the relationship I have with my family, my children, but for BYJ and fellow fan friends, my take is that I am responsible for what I say and do that have impact on BYJ and our bae sisters.)
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
The one who is interested enough and patient enough to make it up to this line, here is the real intent of this post. The emotions I have with our prince now and then is so much different. I can not imagine that I am able to conduct such passionate conversations with him today. So it was a good move that I recorded in this blog, it is truly a journal of this fantastic journey. Here is the list of this chitchat series:
