I just finished The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. I now understand the allure of the book. It's a very well written reminder of the beauty of innocence. Makes me wish I wasn't in such a hurry to grow up.
To say it was just about the beauty of innocence is coming up short. Among the lessons taught by Saint-Exupery I liked most his point of "taming the rose".
As the little prince tells a rose garden, "You are beautiful, but you are empty. 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; because it is she that I have listened to. Because she is my rose."
As Saint-Exupery said, "What is essential is invisible to the naked eye."
Just yesterday I was fixing a malfunctioning old door knob on our entry gate and I thought to myself that this gate must have been opened hundreds of times by all kinds of different people (most of whom cursed that it was so hard to shut and open) yet, not one of them ever took five minutes to fix it and make it work properly. Then, when my repair was complete, I took a few extra seconds to shine it up and make it look real nice while thinking, "I'm probably the only person in the world who will ever admire this door knob."