Social networks make it easier for us to find people, but harder to build genuine relationships with them.
A click is quick, but “taming” – the process of building a bond – takes time, patience, and shared moments.
In The Little Prince, “taming” is the process by which two people become unique to each other — from strangers to friends who recognize and miss one another. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, repetition, and small rituals that turn ordinary moments into lasting memories.
What the Fox from The Little Prince Teaches Us
When we observe young mammals playing, we can see what will matter most to them as adults. Kittens, for example, learn how to fight and hunt through play. Human play, however, is mostly focused on building good relationships.
Here’s how it looks in The Little Prince between the boy and the fox:
- “Come and play with me,” said the little prince. “I am so sad...”
- “I cannot play with you,” said the fox. “I am not tamed.”
Through play, people try to tame each other — to form bonds.
“You are just a little boy to me, like a hundred thousand other little boys.
And you do not need me. And I do not need you.
I am just a fox to you, 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...”
Taming in the Classroom
I see how first-year high school students arrive cautious and reserved. Four years later, they part with sadness — because they have built something precious. They have tamed each other. These bonds are formed subtly, in shared conversations and in moments that turn into rituals.
Why Rituals Matter
In The Little Prince, the fox says:
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
When we turn an ordinary day into a special one through a simple gesture, we create a ritual.
And in doing so, we create a memory we love to revisit. This is not easy — especially today, when we are consumed by countless obligations.
If a friend gives you a clay elephant figurine for your birthday, that figurine becomes unique. Every time you look at it, you’ll think of your friend. If you walk into a store full of elephant figurines, they will mean nothing to you. In the sea of other figurines, only the one on your desk will always hold special meaning.
How to Create and Keep Connections
When I tell my students that they are my job, they don’t like it. They feel there is something far more important than “work” in what I do with them. And they’re right. But it requires patience:
“You must be very patient,” said the fox.
“First you will sit down a little way away from me — over there 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 every day you may sit a little closer...”
Forced to sit together for 45 minutes, several times a week, we talk about love, hope, fear, death.
We do something that busy people rarely do today.
Over time, our classes stop being an obligation — they become a ritual. Moments that are remembered.
Why Create Connections If They End in Tears?
Teenagers walk through the world with headphones in their ears and lips tightly pressed together. They send the message: don’t talk to me, don’t come close. They fear the pain of losing trust, of betrayal. Yet that pain is the price of something precious. The greater the pain when we lose something, the greater its value.
When we lose something valuable, we gain a treasured memory.
And when the day of parting comes:
- “But you will cry!” said the little prince.
- “Yes,” 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.”
Leksikon – A Digital Space for Taming
For over 20 years, I’ve been responsible for creating the graduation yearbook at our school. I tell my students that a yearbook is like a fine red wine — the older it is, the better it becomes.
One former student once asked me if he could still buy his generation’s yearbook. I told him he could have it, but not buy it. By now, it was priceless.
In Leksikon, we want to preserve stories that connect us — traces of taming.
Because, as The Little Prince teaches: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.”
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