A Crown Without a Kingdom

When I first sat on my asteroid, legs dangling over the edge, I thought power meant control. I had my rose, my volcano, and the three little volcanoes that I cleaned every week. I believed that being the only one who could move the sheep, who could guard the rose, made me important. I thought the baobabs needed me to stop them from growing too big, that my small hands held the fate of everything I could see. That was my beginning.

The King Who Knew Nothing

I visited a king once. He wore a purple robe that was too long for him, and he sat on a throne made of nothing but his own pride. He told me he ruled everything—the stars, the moon, even the butterflies. But when I asked him to make a sunset happen sooner, he stammered. He couldn’t. He told me it was against the rules. I didn’t understand then that power is not in the claiming, but in the doing. The king had a crown, but no kingdom that listened.

The Business of Vanity

Then there was the businessman. He counted stars and said they were his. He said he owned them all, and that one day he would write his name on each one. I watched him work tirelessly, never looking up to see the stars he was supposedly collecting. I asked him why he needed so many. He laughed and said, “Because they are mine.” But he never looked at them the way I looked at my rose. He never touched them or watered them. Ownership without care seemed hollow to me, like a house with no windows.

The Mirror of the Fox

The fox taught me more than I expected. He asked me to tame him, and I didn’t understand what that meant. He said, “To tame is to create ties.” I thought I was the one giving something, but it was the other way around. By spending time with him, by looking into his eyes, by coming back every day, I gave him meaning—and he gave me meaning, too. Power, I realized, was not in owning or ruling. It was in connection. The fox was the first to show me that the things we care for, and that care for us in return, are the only true power we have.

The Meaning in the Moment

Now, when I look back at my little asteroid, I see it differently. My rose still needs me, but not because I command her to bloom. She needs me because I chose to care for her. And she, in her own way, chooses to bloom for me. I no longer think about taming the world. I think about being tamed by it. The stars are not mine to count. They are mine to wonder at. The sheep are not mine to rule. They are mine to understand. Power, I have learned, is not in possession, but in presence. Not in control, but in connection.

Talk to The Little Prince on HoloDream, and he’ll tell you how the stars look different when you don’t try to own them.