Important Things: The Little Prince

When you see this photo, what is it? Does it frighten you?

To many people who are unfamiliar with The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, it looks like a hat. But this is no hat. This terrifying thing represents two things: the death of childhood curiosity and innocence and, more importantly, a boa constrictor so massive, that it can eat an entire elephant as shown below.

College came and went as some of the best times of my life. Granted, I was not the party type. I didn’t do the keg stands or all-nighters indulging in drugs, crazy sex, or whatever the movies perceive as the ideal college life. I was the studious adventure type. I worked hard, graduated in Chemistry, and on the side, I worked at my university’s outdoor recreation center. I led climbing and canyoneering trips, managed the climbing wall, and even taught a few classes while I was there. I lived somewhat of a triple life. I was the science nerd (my major), the outdoorsy tree-hugger granola hippie human (my job), and the writer with gaming groups, writers groups, and hours spent at the library creating content (my minor). I loved it.

All of that came to a screeching halt in 2015. I was about to graduate. Not only did I have no job lined up, but there wasn’t much more for me in small town Cedar City, Utah. I could stay on full-time at the outdoor rec center running the climbing wall, teaching courses, and being an assistant to one of the best bosses I ever had in my life, but the pay was low and I’d be stuck in the past. Somehow, I knew that.

Adulthood faced me and I had no idea what I was good at. With no job, I ended up in the place where, in a different generation was the shame of society, in my parents' basement. Depression hit like a rock as I looked for jobs. I tried to find a chemist's career, and no matter how many places I applied none called me back. The only call back I got was from my friend's drug testing lab clinic. I’d take urine samples from a recovery center. They ended up shutting down and, therefore, never hired me despite the “connections.” So, the tens of thousands of dollars I spent getting a science degree was panning up to nothing. Turns out, you need tons of research, work, or advanced degrees to do anything meaningful in chemistry these days.

Next was the outdoor field. Managed to land a rock climbing coaching gig, which I still do to this day 8+ years later. But try as I might, I couldn’t get a decent full-time paying position through them. I was either not management material, or, what eventually punched me in the gut, “Not devoted enough to the company**.”

**Quick background story there: I was dating my then-girlfriend (now wife), and we had a date lined up. To be on time I’d have to leave right after my shift. Corporate had come down from on high and was managing our gym due to high turnover and short staffing. Up until this date I was pulling overtime and making time-and-a-half. My shift hit its end just as a couple came in for a belay lesson. I turned to the corporate guy and said, “I have to go, my shift is over, can you take this lesson?” In my mind, I did well, in his mind, I prioritized regular life nonsense over customer service. Next staff meeting the whole team got accosted and was told it’s okay to stay a little after shift AND to help out if you’re in the gym and not even on shift (free labor). When I applied for a management position (to obtain ameliorated pay), he just so happened to sit in the interview. Talk about reverse “connections.” Gotta love capitalism.

Regardless, I was hitting rock bottom. I worked two part-time jobs. Coaching and a job at a museum in their education staff doing STEM activities and cleaning up puke in the children’s museum. I was a chemistry graduate with two part-time jobs making $10 an hour.

Oh and writing? I hit the open market with my newly edited novel The Ruby Blade (sample pages on Vocal) and a bunch of my short stories and poetry prose to magazines and literary journals.

100% rejection.

Nothing was working out. I was steeped in depression, and nothing seemed to be working my way. The pressures of adulthood were crashing down on me. With all the money I was forking out towards life, I was net-gaining maybe $50 a month. Social media was a pleasant mental boost with photos of my friends taking long road trips, traveling the world, and climbing, camping, or visiting exotic locales. Here I was, breaking even, sitting in a small rented room calculating if I had enough money to drive to the mountains.

Then I read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It was a book one of my ex-girlfriends gave me ages ago. I started it, but seeing it was a child’s book, didn’t get very far into it. When we broke up, it hit the bookshelf and got buried amidst my thick-spined fantasy/sci-fi novels. Not in the mood for a dense read, easy read to dive into, I picked up the slim children’s book again.

I was wrong. It was not a light read.

I wept like a child who lost their favorite toy.

If you haven’t read it, it’s about the author/narrator writing as a downed pilot who finds a child in the Sahara desert named the Little Prince. The Little Prince tells his story of how he traveled from his small little planet to Earth passing all sorts of interesting people.

Despite being a creative writing minor graduate, writing novels, and reading, I’m not a literary genius and those awesome meanings authors lace into their creations sometimes don’t stand out. This read through, however, all his insinuations about the loss of childhood into adulthood hit me hard. Here I was a post-college grad who went from doing whatever the wind said to grinding through mind-numbing networking and corporate shenanigans. I saw the ghosts of the vain adults the prince passed on the planets, and I felt the crush that happens at the end of the novel. Saint-Exupery’s theme finally hit home and hit hard for me.

I decided that no matter the life pressures I was going to keep my head up, push through, and do the things I love no matter what. I was going to publish my book. I would keep working, even lightly, in the outdoor field, and I would keep my toes in science even if I wasn’t an innovative engineering, brainy badass rolling in cash.

So I became a science teacher…

In a middle school…

And now a high school…

Now drowning in a mortgage due to crippling interest rates and inflating housing prices. Again, gotta love that capitalism.

Baby steps… right?

Regardless, I strive to keep my childhood with me and keep a curiosity for the world around me. I strive to explore through the lens of discovery, not profits, power, or consumption, all points of misery Saint-Exupery demonstrates with the adults lost in their vanity. I will always put my family and my children’s curiosity and learning above wealth and material gain which so many strive for in this world of grab and take. If you haven’t read The Little Prince, look at where you are in your life, if you’re feeling at a dead end, this might hit stronger. With inflation and billionaires and political divisions with both the red and the blue making audacious strives for power and corruption and followers, along with the strained educational field taking away the fun of learning for the sake of college and career readiness, you’ll see how even 80 years later this 1943 novel is still relevant to this day, if not more so than ever.

In the end, this novel, I feel is more for adults than children. Shortly after getting married, I sat down with my two, brand new step-children and read this novel aloud to both of them. When I finished, bracing them for the tears and awe, we finished the book and I glowed with pride while they simply said, “That was weird. Can we watch the Netflix movie now?”

Time and place, I guess.

Someday it will hit. And when it does, I’m sure it will be that moment when they, too, stand on the precipice of adulthood and must determine what are the important things of life. You know, such as being able to tell the difference between a hat and an elephant-eating snake. Could save your life someday.