18 Apr 2004 #0416.html

The Little Prince

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Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt via hardcopy,

cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"Tuesday, 13 April 2004, the following article was in The Houston Chronicle:

`Burden of legend is lifted from 'Little Prince For nearly 60 years the legend of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the aviator and author of The Little Prince, has largely eclipsed the life. More substantial and more valuable things have gone missing - Atlantis, the Holy Grail, 18 1/2 minutes of a White House tape - but few have generated the romance enduringly attached to the writer who, borrowing a trick from his best-known creation, neatly vanished into thin air. At 8:45 a.m. on July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupery took off from Corsica for a reconnaissance mission over occupied France. He was due back at 12:30 p.m. but did not return. At 1 p.m. his commanding officer began biting his nails; at 3:30 Saint-Exupery was officially reported missing. In April 1945, a funeral Mass was finally held for him. He never exactly died, however, On reading of his disappearance, Anne Morrow Lindbergh put her finger on the special ache it caused. There is a terrible difference, wrote a woman supremely qualified to know, between "lost and dead." There is also a not-so-secret recipe for what becomes a legend. Increasingly we live in a world in which objects cannot disappear from view, and last week wreckage from an aircraft hauled up from the Mediterranean was positively identified as Saint-Exupery's. It had been clear for some time that the Lockheed P-38 was probably a few miles off the coast of Marseilles, where in 1988 a local fisherman plucked the pilot's silver identity bracelet from his net. The discovery resolves one mystery about Saint-Exupery's end: He was - by no means a given - where he was supposed to be. His instructions that day would have taken him over Lyon, and it was evidently on the return to Corsica that his P-38 dove vertically, at high speed, into the ocean. The question of why the plane crashed is unlikely to be resolved by the scattered debris; that it crashed could not be said to have been unexpected. Saint-Exupery was his squadron's record- holder of near-disasters. having waged a campaign to talk his way back into active service, he was piloting a plane into which he did not fit and which he could not comfortably fly. He was unable to communicate with the control tower in English. The operation of hydraulic brakes defied him. Routinely, he confused feet and meters. The French pilots in Corsica knew Saint-Exupery as a prize- winning author and a pioneer of aviation. The Americans knew him only as an outsized, overage, under trained wreck of a man, one who only eight weeks into his time with them mangled an $80,000 aircraft. For that mishap he was unceremoniously grounded. He begged for leniency; he was, he protested, willing to die for his country. "I don't give a damn if you die for France or not," Col. Leo Gray informed Saint-Exupery, "but you're not going to do so in one of our airplanes.' It was a case of one national treasure against another. It was also a case in which Saint-Exupery got his way. He had long outlived the era in which he felt comfortable; he could imagine himself nowhere but in the cockpit of a plane. He had all his life dreamed of escape, pined for broader horizons, threatened to change planets. More and more he felt alienated from his own countrymen, whose infighting he had criticized; fiercely anti-Nazi, he supported neither de Gaulle nor the communists. He predicted that liberation would not put France out of its misery. "Many people," he warned in 1944, "are going to be shot next year." In a particularly bleak mood he imagined himself to be one of them. From his personal frustrations and his inability to make his political positions understood came The Little Prince, the modest volume under which has swelled a grassy knoll of literature. Published in 1943 but a best-seller only later, the text read eerily as a death foretold, its mystique enhanced by the parallel between author and subject: Imperious innocents whose lives consist of equal parts flight and failed love, who fall to Earth, are little impressed with what they find here and ultimately disappear without a trace. Naturally it is easier to predict your own death if you are willing to commit suicide, and for those inclined to such readings there is the mystical matter of the sunsets. The little prince lives on a planet so mall that he is able to watch the sun set precisely 44 times a day - case-clinchingly, the age of Saint-Exupery at his death. (For some inexplicable reason, the prince witnesses 44 sunsets only in the English translation. In the original, he watches 43.) That Saint-Exupery had no desire to go on living was clear; that he meant to kill himself is not. With the discovery of his aircraft, however, that theory has been dredged up again in the French news media. It has been to protect him fro the indignity of that charge - and to sustain a valuable myth - that Saint-Exupery's family has long opposed all searches for his aircraft. Presumably too they would prefer to avoid appropriating statements like that offered up by the mayor of Marseilles. He greeted the news with the pronouncement that "Saint-Exupery's disappearance has become the symbol of the resistance and the liberation of Provence." Saint-Exupery's fate remains constant. It seems the myth will always be cultivated at the expense of the man. What does change is the Little Prince, restored at last to what it was in its author's lifetime: a work of fiction. It has long carried a heavy load, more than any book should have to; no one ever expected P.L. Travers to be carried off by the west wind. Saint-Exupery's fairy tale is free again to tangle not with its author's enigma, but with the mysteries that so befuddled him: It is lonely among men; language remains the source of misunderstandings; more than ever, we rush around recklessly, recklessly uncertain of what we're looking for. It may be more difficult to lose an aircraft in the Mediterranean than once it was, but some riddles endure. As do a few truths about Saint-Exupery's end. His was a noble death, made in the name of the greater good to which all of his literature returns. As his widow noted, the exit was custom-made, a meteoric fall at the end of a star-chasing life. (It was also an advantageous death. The French author who dies for France finds his copyrights extended for 30 years beyond the norm.) The end shows every sign as well of having been the one Saint-Exupery wanted. In the 1930s he was asked if, given an already impressive catalog of close calls, he had come to prefer one death to another. Stipulating that is answer was not for publication until he was "truly dead," he opted for water. "You don't feel yourself dying," he reported, on uncomfortably good authority. "You feel simply as if you're falling asleep and beginning to dream." And there, surely, we can leave him.'


I expect each of you have read The Little Prince. If not, I encourage you to read it. In fact, I encourage you to read it again now. It is a short book, and as you read it, I want to encourage you to think of me as The Little Prince (some of the psychologists I have visited with have pointed out that I was my mother's Little Prince), and you as the rose. Yes we all have thorns. And more importantly in my analogy, The Little Prince loved his rose, and I love each of you, for you are each a very special and very beautiful rose to me. Yes Paul, every your great big hunk is as a beautiful rose to me. I do hope this comes across in my Thoughtlets. And that you don't just see the thorns I point out too often, and don't just personalize things I write which can be taken negatively.

I received a couple of nice notes about my Travel Thoughtlet, which I feel are appropriate to pass on. At 14:51 on April 14th Melanie wrote:

`Hey Dad, Just a few things... I was surprised to hear that we did not go to church when you were traveling when we were younger. I do not remember this at all. Also, I wanted to apologize for contributing to your embarrassment for counting your swallows. It was never my intention to hurt your feelings or make you embarrassed of what you are trying to do when I have made light of your efforts. A part of the humor I have observed in Jared's family (& I guess picked up myself) is... they make light of different 'quirky' behavior that different ones may have. What they all understand is that this behavior is what makes them uniquely them. It is not something to be ashamed of or something any of them try to change. I guess that is what we started doing with your swallows. I am actually very very impressed with the consistency I see in your life. I believe consistency is one of the greatest attributes a person can have, especially when it comes to raising children. Its something I struggle with because I feel like I inherited mom's moodiness & more bipolar (inconsistent) behavior. I'm proud of you for making up your mind on something & sticking with it. When I joked about counting swallows, I guess it roots down to the fact I couldn't do it myself. I'm sorry that I wasn't more aware of what I was doing. Finally, I just wanted to let you know Jared & my thoughts about traveling. I guess we recognize that we will never have an opportunity to travel to most of the places you are talking about going in our lifetime (unless we were called on a foreign mission when we are older). We also know that it is unlikely that we will have the opportunity to spend that kind of time with you under normal circumstances. I had such a wonderful experience going to London & Scotland with you & it is something Jared & I would really love to consider. It wouldn't be hard for us to get a babysitter for Colby (especially during the summer... but even during the school year wouldn't be hard). If we were to travel in the next year the baby would have to come with us because she is nursing. The positive side to that is her plane ticket is free. The negative side is you can never be sure how she will do on a plane ride - especially an international flight. We never had problems when Colby was a baby on a plane, but his longest trip was probably 3 hours. We did take him on a 13 hour car ride one time & it wasn't too bad. As far as Jared's work - he has flexibility & vacation time. His busy seasons are usually May, Thanksgiving, & Christmas. Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm glad that your trip went so well, despite all the negative sides of travel! I love you, Mel'


At 14:57 on April 14th Audrey wrote:

`Roice, Just a quick note, in lieu of your thoughlet and travel, I would just like to say thank you for the experience of a lifetime that you have given me to travel this past summer to London!!! You and mom are the best!! Grandma Shirts mentioned I ought to keep some sort of a journal documenting the places that I have been. In the short 3 weeks that I have been a flight attendant I have traveled to : -San Francisco, California (First trip by myself) -Great Falls, Montana -Denver, Colorado -Colorado Springs, Colorado -Palm Springs, California (4 Day trip Overnight) -Los Angeles, California -Las Vegas, Nevada -Santa Maria, California -Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Overnight) -Kalispell, Montana -Sun Valley, Idaho -St. George, Utah -Tucson, Arizona (5 day trip Overnight) -Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas -Phoenix, Arizona (Overnight) -San Diego, California -Santa Barbara, California (Overnight) -Monterey, California (2 day trip Overnight) -Ontario, California I have already been to so many places that I would normally not have the opportunity to travel and see. Some of these places I did not get the opportunity to see anything but the airport, however, others like Palm Springs, Monterey Jackson Hole and San Francisco I was able to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Golden Gate Bridge, Snowboarding in Jackson Hole, Swimming in Palm Springs, etc. And I get paid to do this!!! This is already an amazing job that I feel so grateful to have. Also, I am also grateful that because of my job, you and mom get to travel for free because you are my parents. I guess that's one of the perks of being a parent?!! The other kids also benefit because of the fact that I get 24 buddy passes a year will help with bringing our family together for reunions and such. Anyways, thanks for all you do, your the best!!!!! love always audrey'


For what it is worth, these kind of notes mean a lot to me. Thanks. Folks usually give what they like to receive. I have had such bad experiences on the phone and in attempting to have conversations about emotional things and feelings, that I have reverted to using a keyboard to express my thoughts and feelings. It is safer, someone can not attack and blind side me because I don't think as quick as they do. It means a lot to receive e-mails like Melanie and Audrey sent, to be able to respond to them, and then to be able to reread them and to think about them when I go on a run or have to spend an hour in the car commuting to and from work. When I am alone with my thoughts, I truly am The Little Prince.

My week was busy and interesting. Sunday, April 11th, I wrote a possible Prime Words stanza based comment (a) Bill McPherson and (b) Don Keller in High Priest Quorum:

`Unless we share our testimony We never hear it(a) We never meet our obligation(b) A personal witness of Christ's merit'


Monday I wrote another possible stanza from a quote from (a) John Skelly, former CEO of Apple, based on a tape I was listening to during the commute:

`Simplicity is the Ultimate sophistication(a) Staying too busy Seldom leads to a vacation'


Tuesday morning there was a meeting with Fred Hilterman about the definition of Class I, Class II, and Class III AVOs (Amplitude Verses Offset, a technical direct hydrocarbon indicator from prestack seismic data). Tuesday afternoon we had the meeting with two representatives from the BGP (Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting). Really interesting. I won't go into detail on all of the business discussions here, because this is rapidly becoming of a business proprietary nature for GDC (Geophysical Development Corporation). When we are together ask me. These are not emotional things, and I have no problem talking about them at more length than you probably ever will want to know. I wrote another possible stanza, about a concept which I wish all U.S. business would apply, from a quote from (a) Sinegal, President of Cosco:

`We're not going to do Something for one quarter That destroys the fabric Of our company'


Wednesday was the big Spotfire meeting at GDC. In typical bureaucratic style, a decision was put on hold for two weeks and Spotfire agreed to extend my evaluation license for another two weeks. Oh well! There was a very good quote on one of the tapes I was listening to on the commute from Ralph Waldo Emmerson's essay on Self Reliance, and referring to one of the themes from The Little Prince, which I turned into a couple of possible stanzas for Prime Words:

`It is easy in the world To live after the world's opinion It is easy in solitude To live after our own But the great man is he Who in the midst of the crowd Keeps with perfect sweetness The independence of solitude'


Thursday was a very busy day, writing a report on the China trip, building a chart showing the organizational relationships of the different groups we talked to in China, and I am getting involved in more and more meetings. You can not get any work done when you are sitting in a meeting. Oh well! I did write down the GDC vacation schedule for the rest of 2004:

Friday we were suppose to have a follow-up meeting with Wang Xuejun, the Vice-President from GRI. We affectionately refer to him as Wang III (Wang I Wang Xumu, the Chairman of the Board of BGP, and Wang II is Wang Tiejun, the President of BGP). Lee Bell, the new President of GDC, who started while we were in China, pointed out that two or three Wangs don't make a (W)right. At 7:10 I received a call on my cell phone from Wang III saying he would not be able to meet with us. After an extended discussion we agreed that I would bring Hugh Frazier, a senior geophysicist at Quantum Geophysical, GDC's sister company under Geokinetics, and come to his hotel room to have the discussion. The meetings expanded into about three hours of meetings. We met a Senior Consultant for BGP who has lived in the U.S. for 17 years and lives at Peek Road and Highland Knolls. He told me a couple of times, `Roice, you have a very, very big opportunity here with BGP.' Evidently BGP has been talking to several other geophysical companies. However, GDC is the only company to have access to the senior management of BGP. Mike and Dave and Lee were pleased with our report.

At lunch I was reading from `State of the World 2004,' and found the following passage, which I want to pass on to Sara:

`In many cases, farmers are unaware of or fail to use proper safety procedures when handling and disposing of chemicals. In one survey in Benin, West Africa, 45% of cotton farmers said they use pesticide containers to carry water, while 20-35% used them to hold milk or soup.'


About 4:30 I received an offer letter from GDC, written by Mike Dunn and signed by Lee Bell. It is a very good offer, including a reasonable salary, a signing bonus, a very generous stock option that vests over three years, commission on sales to China, commission on personal IP (Intellectual Property) which GDC commercializes, four weeks of vacation a year, and the title `Vice-President of Interpretation Services.' Some of the things are less than I had been told, and there are issues with the wording about IP. There is a six month non-compete if I leave them. I'm sure we will work through the questions on Monday and I will become an employee of GDC, another guy with a regular job, backdated to be effective on April 1st (which is April Fools Day).

On the way home I was listening to a tape on a book called `Optimal Thinking.' There were two sets of questions which I will be thinking about over the next few weeks, and I think it would be worthwhile for each of you to think about them also:

`Personal Questions: 1. What do I care about most deeply? 2. What and who do I love? 3. What am I deeply committed to? 4. What do I stand for? What are my principles? 5. When am I at my best? 6. What has given me the greatest feelings of importance in my life? What has been most beneficial for my self esteem? 7. What is it that I definitely don't want? 8. What do I want more than anything else? 9. Which activities do I enjoy the most? 10. In order of priority, what are the three things I value most in life? 11. In order of priority, what are my three most important ambitions in life 12. If I had one year to live how would I make the most of it? 13. How would I like to be remembered? 14. If I were given all the money I could ever need or want, how would I live my life? 15. If I could experience the ultimate day, what would it be like? 16. What would my ultimate environment be like? 17. Which one purpose would I concentrate on if I knew there was no chance of failure? 18. What is my ultimate purpose? What do I most want to accomplish? Career Questions to quantify and rank in priority order: 1. What are my strengths? What are my talents and gifts? What are all the assets I bring to the table? 2. What makes me happy? What brings me joy? 3. What do I love to do? 4. What am I most interested in doing? What is my passion? 5. How do I most enjoy contributing to others? 6. What cause do I most want to serve? 7. What kind of organization am I best suited for? 8. What is my career purpose?'


I stopped by Dick Coon's house for a third time this week on the way home. He was home. GDC had expressed interest in marketing his South Texas Prospects. However, after Ken Butler's due-diligence, they decided there was too much risk to proceed with this opportunity. We talked through the different next step options. Dick expressed an interest in working with me in my new role as Vice President of Interpretation at GDC, at least to provide some consulting cash flow. This could prove to be very useful to both of us.

I arrived at the house about 6:30 to see 7 yards of mulch dumped in the middle of the street in front of our house, going from the mail box to the driveway, and covering both lanes of the north flowing traffic on Emerald Green. Before the sun went down we had moved enough that it only blocked one lane of north flowing traffic. And by 4:30 PM on Saturday it was all out of the street. Seven yards is a lot of mulch. Next time we need to (1) time it so it is when some of you are here to help, or (2) hire a yard service. After the last two week's work the yard does look nice. It is a nice place for The Little Prince to retreat to and to admire his roses.

I took Matt to work and picked him up from a movie he went to after work. Between these, Andrea and I went and looked at some couches and went to the last Know Your Religion presentation. It was one of the best we have been to. The speaker works with Randall Wright in Austin, and his topic was marriage. He pointed out that the four things that most lead to divorce are:

  1. Criticism
  2. Contempt
  3. Defensiveness
  4. Withdrawal

These words sure do hit home. Of course, I can't do anything about the past, just the future. So he pointed out we need to do the opposite to have successful marriages:

  1. Praise and Validation
  2. Love, Kindness, and Charity
  3. Accountability
  4. Engage, Connect, and Intimacy

He pointed out that President Kimball taught to have a good marriage we must:

  1. Choose the right person
  2. Be Unselfish
  3. Continually court
  4. Continually live the commandments

And he pointed out the keys to marriage are:

  1. Marriage is essential, we can not become perfect without our spouse and we need each other to lift each other up.
  2. Be nice, and renew our love each day.
  3. Sacrifice leads to love, for only if we are willing to sacrifice for something will we love it.

Lastly he said marriage is the toughest contact sport there is, that serving a mission is preschool, and marriage and family life is school. Too bad we tend to forget all of the good advice we hear in our lives during the heat of the moment.

Church was nice today. John (a) and Misty (b) Liu were the sacrament speakers. I wrote a possible Prime Word's stanza from each of their talks:

`The temple provides An eternal perspective The spirit guides If we are receptive (b)' `The temple gives us peace When friends and family die (b) A preview of the emotional feast When we will greet those who now in death lie'


I also solved the problem of figuring out how thick the marble in back of the chapel is, based on the assumption that the saw blade that cut the marble is 1/8th inch thick. Alpha is 1/8x, and Y, the thickenss, is X(2), the measured distance of the fracture stain * tangent(Alpha). There are good things coming from all of the formula work on AVO being done at GDC already.

Adam Salt gave up a kidney on Friday for his brother Matthew. The transplant was successful. The following e-mail was sent out by Barbara yesterday and I read it today:

`It was a long day at the hospital...most of it spent in the ICU waiting room, well...waiting. They took Adam into surgery at 8 AM, Matthew at 9:30. Both were moved into "recovery" in the ICU between 1:30 and 2 PM The doctors were very positive about the surgery and said both did well. The kidney looked good and seems at first pass to be working. We will know more on that tomorrow. Adam was moved into a regular room about 7 PM tonight but was still very sleepy, responded in one word replies (like you do when you are only half awake), nauseous, and in a fair amount of pain even with a morphine drip. Matthew will be in ICU all of tonight and tomorrow morning. He is alert, awake, watching TV and trying to get his bed so he can sit upright without causing pain. He too is on a morphine drip. Because they were in ICU we only were able to visit them for 30 minutes every 3-4 hours. (Which we had to split between both boys) The first visit we mostly watched them sleep. Thank you for your prayers in their behalf. We are very grateful for all of your kindness on their behalf.'


And in closing, having caught up on Thoughtlets, but not Grandkidlets, I hope each of you will take my advice and read or reread The Little Prince."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2004 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.