🌹 Tina or Antoine — Who do we believe ?

Tina Turner once asked, “What’s love got to do with it? What’s love but a second-hand emotion?”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in Le Petit Prince, replied across time and space: “On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur.”

Between these two visions lies the spectrum of human experience. Tina’s words speak from the scarred wisdom of survival — a love that has known pain, disillusion, and the need for strength. Antoine’s words emerge from innocence rediscovered — the conviction that what truly matters can only be perceived through the heart.

Both are right, in their own way. Yet in a world increasingly ruled by efficiency, cynicism, and speed, I find myself leaning towards Antoine. For love, in its truest form, resists commodification. It cannot be rushed, nor reduced to emotion alone. It is an act of recognition — of seeing, waiting, and choosing to care.

The Petit Prince reminds us why it is good to wait for one’s fox, and why our rose — imperfect, fragile, and entirely ours — remains unique.

Love, then, is not a second-hand emotion.
It is first-hand understanding.

1.  (c) PAUL NATKIN/GETTY IMAGES (Tina)
   Maria Gubicekova (Le Petit Prince) ↩