The Alchemist by Paul Cohelo
The Alchemist follows the story a boy named Santiago who is having trouble finding out what he should do in his life. Originally, he is a shepherd and is happy with that way of life because he knows the ropes of the lifestyle. Then he has a dream about treasure, and goes off to a fortune teller to decipher his dream. She says go for it, but Santiago doesn't believe her. In search of a second opinion, he finds a king, or more like the king finds him. This wise old man confirms Santiago's dreams about some wild treasure off near the pyramids. Santiago goes off on this wild journey that will forever change his life.
As you may have gathered, The Alchemist is all about following your dreams. I think that the people that choose not to follow their dreams die inside to some extent. Santiago follows his dream, of a desire to find treasure and experience different things. One of the more memorable sections of the story is when Santiago starts to work for a crystal shop to get money for the trip across the desert. At first, Santiago is sad about loosing all his money to a thief, but eventually, he becomes a valuable companion to the shop's owner who has lost most hope in his life. The owner is losing faith in his shop, and doubting himself after spending 30 long years tending the shop, and not following his dream to travel. Santiago pumps creativity into the shop, and becomes very rich along with the owner. In this comfort of working in the shop, Santiago forgets his dream for a while. He seems uncertain and unhappy during that time. Despite that, Santiago learns a lot about communicating to the world in this shop.
So how can this scenario play out in our own lives? I think that all of us at times get into ruts, as the shop's owner was. We allow ourselves to get absorbed into the comforts in our daily lives, and place our faith into material desires. This process doesn't have to be on the big scale I may be portraying, it can be on the scale of a day! The absorption into the material world derails us and separates us from our souls. Hopefully we can get out of this hellish rut, and back into living out our lives, but not all do. It's good to have compassion for these people, and try to help them get out of their slumps.
I like Paul Coelho's style of writing. For the most part, I was pretty absorbed into the book. I got shaken off track a bit, because I found that the book requires a lot of focus which I wasn't giving it for a while. It has a lot of wisdom packed in, a lot which I probably didn't catch.
Another theme explored in the book is the metaphorical term of there being a soul of the world. The basic concept of this wonderful thing includes the universal language of love, and that if we become aware of the non-audible language we gain a deeper means of communication between everything. One means of communication Santiago gains is becoming aware of the omens. The theory behind omens is that you are always being given hints of what's to come, that the earth is a living being with a soul. An interesting quote from the book about this topic is "When you really want something to happen, all the Universe conspires in helping you." It's basically saying that love is a universal language, and that the world communicates with it.
As you may have gathered, The Alchemist is all about following your dreams. I think that the people that choose not to follow their dreams die inside to some extent. Santiago follows his dream, of a desire to find treasure and experience different things. One of the more memorable sections of the story is when Santiago starts to work for a crystal shop to get money for the trip across the desert. At first, Santiago is sad about loosing all his money to a thief, but eventually, he becomes a valuable companion to the shop's owner who has lost most hope in his life. The owner is losing faith in his shop, and doubting himself after spending 30 long years tending the shop, and not following his dream to travel. Santiago pumps creativity into the shop, and becomes very rich along with the owner. In this comfort of working in the shop, Santiago forgets his dream for a while. He seems uncertain and unhappy during that time. Despite that, Santiago learns a lot about communicating to the world in this shop.
So how can this scenario play out in our own lives? I think that all of us at times get into ruts, as the shop's owner was. We allow ourselves to get absorbed into the comforts in our daily lives, and place our faith into material desires. This process doesn't have to be on the big scale I may be portraying, it can be on the scale of a day! The absorption into the material world derails us and separates us from our souls. Hopefully we can get out of this hellish rut, and back into living out our lives, but not all do. It's good to have compassion for these people, and try to help them get out of their slumps.
I like Paul Coelho's style of writing. For the most part, I was pretty absorbed into the book. I got shaken off track a bit, because I found that the book requires a lot of focus which I wasn't giving it for a while. It has a lot of wisdom packed in, a lot which I probably didn't catch.
Another theme explored in the book is the metaphorical term of there being a soul of the world. The basic concept of this wonderful thing includes the universal language of love, and that if we become aware of the non-audible language we gain a deeper means of communication between everything. One means of communication Santiago gains is becoming aware of the omens. The theory behind omens is that you are always being given hints of what's to come, that the earth is a living being with a soul. An interesting quote from the book about this topic is "When you really want something to happen, all the Universe conspires in helping you." It's basically saying that love is a universal language, and that the world communicates with it.
posted by featheredtar at Thursday, May 12, 2005
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