“We are born princes,
and civilisation makes us into frogs.”
(Eric Berne)
The fairy tale in modern version. We are princes by birth, by blood, by lineage, by nature. We are free before thought and courageous before love; we are spontaneous, mischievous, light-hearted as the sons and daughters of the king who romp around the halls in the royal palace and shake its stately vaults with the wild screams of our infant throats. The royal palace is ours, and the whole of creation is ours, as children that we are of the Father who has made it all. Each son and daughter is different, marked by the artist’s touch that gave us life; each one of us is a unique expression of that particular glimpse of himself that God imprinted on each one of us, thus to build up between us all the image of his glory. We are princes and princesses in the Kingdom that lasts unto eternity.
But the curse of the jealous witch converts us into frogs. The curse is the so-called civilisation. Etiquette, formalities, bureaucracy, computers. The pattern and the expectation and the procedure. The eternal queue before the correct window. The printed form, the stamp, the true copy. We all end up by being a file in a cabinet, a file in a computer. Bow to the fashion and follow the crowd. Do what all do, and speak as all speak. All with one accent. All with one voice. Like frogs in their pond: all green, with bulging eyes and a voice out of tune. From pond to pond and from night to night. Croak, croak, croak! Royal ancestry converted in wet serenade. Lost heritage.
Who will now be the good fairy that may give us back our face? With which magic wand will she touch us to make us recover our shape? Which incantation will she pronounce to counteract the spell under which we are bound?
We are not going to wait for our turn in the queue of the thousand-and-one nights. The awakening comes from within. It shakes our conscience and sets fire to our blood. We know ourselves to be different, and we refuse to remain in the routine any longer. It is time to get out of it. On a starry night, in the silence of sleep and the secret of shadows, we claim our true form and recover our independence. No need for revolutions or manifestos. It is enough to stand erect and smile all round. We know the mystery. We know our royal blood. And as princes and princesses that we are, we dare to be ourselves, to be different, to say what we feel, to feel what we live, to live what we are. We dare to think by ourselves. To break the mould. To jump the pigeonhole. To escape the bulldozer. We will always be respectful before the society in which we live and the persons with whom we deal; but at the same time we’ll feel free, original, creative. No repeated croaking in uniform chorus. We are princes and princesses of royal blood, prophets of the imagination, artists in behaviour. We want to be the touch of colour in a computerised society. To be truly ourselves in the fullness of our being and the zest of our life is the best service we can render a spiritually steamrolled society. This is true civilisation.
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