The Universe is Crazy

Through the haze of the twilight walked in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s Little Prince.  He was still the same old Little Prince (LP).  That’s why he appeared in the twilight.  When they grow up they become princes or princesses of darkness.

“The Universe is a crazy place,” said LP when I asked what he had learnt after so many years of wandering among the stars and meteors.  Just imagine your own situation, he said.  Right now you are moving at about a speed of 1500 km per hour. 

“You mean the speed of the rotation of the earth?” I ventured to ask.  It is dangerous to ask questions to enlightened people.  You never know how they will take your questions. They live in a different universe altogether.

Precisely, he said.  If the earth is rotating at a speed of about 1500 km per hour on its axis, you are moving at that speed, aren’t you?

“The earth is also revolving around the Sun at about 30 km per second,” I said. 

Indeed, he consented immediately.  So you are spinning at about half a kilometre per second and rushing in the space at about 30 km per second. 

He had converted 1500 km per hour into km per second, I understood.

Then there are your airplanes and maglev trains and what not, said LP.  So much rush, so much rush.  He shook his head as if he didn’t like all that rush.

“Rush is the law of the universe, it seems,” I ventured again.

That’s why, I said, it’s a crazy system.

The madness is perhaps its beauty too, he went on.  There’s a method to that madness.

“Yup.  Our scientists have found out the formulas of those methods.”  I wanted to add that the formulas make the system very sane.  Not crazy. 

Well, you never know when a shooting star will appear from nowhere, said LP.  I have had to dodge quite a lot of craziness during my cosmic wanderings.

“Maybe even the shooting stars follow some formulas,” I suggested.  “Our scientists...”

Little Prince

What is essential remains beyond the formulas and rules, said LP cutting me short.  What is essential reveals itself only to the heart.

“But the heart is crazier than the universe,” I blurted out. Every terrorist is a lover at heart, I thought. Every hater is.  Every fanatic is. 

The heart is the root that keeps you from being tossed about in this crazy universe.  LP peered into my eyes as if to check whether I had a heart.  Your religious people haven’t discovered the heart, he said, they only discovered gods.