• View fandomyoga’s profile on Facebook
  • View fandomyoga’s profile on Twitter
  • View fandomyoga’s profile on Instagram
  • View karenofnine/fandom-yoga’s profile on Pinterest
  • View fandomyoga’s profile on Tumblr
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Fandom Yoga

Namaste, Live Long & Prosper and May the Force be With You

  • Home
  • Poses
  • Flows
  • Mantras
  • Intentions
  • Concepts
  • Playlist
  • Fandoms
  • Contact

The Little Prince in the Government Shutdown

January 9, 2019 by Fandom Yoga Leave a Comment

What is essential? To you, to your family, to the world? Are you essential?

During this government shut down, that’s a question very much on the minds of employees on furlough. Those who are “essential” must come in and work, those who are not cool their heels at home. Who knows when anyone will get paid.

Outside of the realm of shutdowns, you’ll find that word used notably in quite another context – the internationally beloved book “The Little Prince.” On his trip from his tiny asteroid home, he learns from his friend the fox that one important secret to life is the following:

“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.”

With that in mind, the Little Prince would take exception (to say the least) with our current interpretation of “essential.”

The book illustrates its central lesson with examples – like how the wheat is filled with the meaning for the fox because it resembles the Prince’s hair. The stars are filled with meaning once the narrator knows that the Prince is somewhere up there laughing among them.

A being, meanwhile, becomes essential to another once they have taken the time to “tame” each other. The fox and the Prince tame each other and the Prince also has such a relationship with a rose that grows on his asteroid. The special nature of the rose is not visible but nevertheless it is more meaningful than a garden of roses.

“People where you live, the little prince said, grow five thousand roses in one garden… Yet they don’t find what they’re looking for… And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose.”

Here is where “essential” in both “The Little Prince” and the government shut down collide. The whole reason for the shut down is that the president would like to build a wall along the Southern border and is willing to do anything to get it. This wall would keep out asylum-seekers, bedraggled masses who are seem to represent the most inessential beings imaginable.

But if he would have ever read “The Little Prince” – which is unlikely, since it does not feature his name – he might realize that those masses have an essential nature that we can’t see. They are essential to each other, to people at home, to people here, in ways we just don’t know.

And every government worker is essential, too – not just because our country is hurting without them, but also because they are more than their jobs and they are more than bargaining chips. They are essential, Americans are essential, non-Americans are essential, refugees are essential. We all make the world better and more meaningful for someone.

How amazing it would be if we all took the time to “tame” each other, making the world beyond our borders meaningful to us, too.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: books, the little prince

Previous Post: « We are all Guinan, Moana, Eleanor, and Mrs. Maisel in Plato’s Cave
Next Post: Sun Salutation Flow »

Reader Interactions

Thoughts...?!Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Where to start?

Wondering what this has to do with yoga? Yoga means “to join” – and here I join together ideas from different fandoms of many kinds, including, of course, yoga!

Check out where yoga can take you. Or how you could start yoga with a body that might betray your love of sitting, reading, and watching? Try why yoga is great for geeks or the best benefits of yoga that aren’t exercise. How about where to start? Read this guide to the basic yoga poses for beginners.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • Backwards and in heels
  • Staring into the Vantablack Bagel
  • This way madness lies?
  • Haunted atoms go to space
  • Having a sad like a straw in the head

Recent Comments

  • Buy African espresso on Backwards and in heels
  • sandscasino.co.kr on Backwards and in heels
  • ESL Lesson Plans on Backwards and in heels
  • native ad networks on Backwards and in heels
  • Staring into the Vantablack Bagel on Haunted atoms go to space

Copyright © 2025 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework

 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d