The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - Part 1 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 188

July 7, 2020

Book 54 - The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho (1993)
 Part 1 - page 1-47
Reading Time - 60 minutes

I've read this classic book a few times but always benefit from a re-reading. The book might not have changed, but I have changed, and I always get something new and different from it every time I read it.

The book is all about following your personal calling, legend, dream. Along the way, we come up against four main obstacles...

• As a child, we are told it is impossible
• We don't want to hurt those we love as we abandon our "regular" life for our dream
• A fear of defeat
• A fear of realizing the dream for which we have fought all our lives. If we reach our dream... then what?

We meet Santiago, a shepherd who lives quite a happy existence, leading his sheep around the meadows and mountains of Andalusia. He has this recurring dream of travelling to the Pyramids in Egypt and discovering a treasure. Interestingly, he had this dream in an abandoned church.. hint... that church will come up again later. Santiago doesn't expect much of life, hopes to meet the baker's daughter again when he passes through a certain town but, basically he is content. Except for that dream...

He then meets a man who says he is the King of Salem, Melchizedek. We learn from him about Personal Legends and the Soul of the World which is nourished by people's happiness. Melchizedek encourages Santiago to follow his personal dream, to realize his destiny. When you want something... all the universe conspires to make it happen. I would think the key factor there is... us actually wanting something... not just a shallow want. But a real, soul-deep, want that is rooted in the very depths of our being. But how many of us have that sort of a want? Because if we really want something that we don't have (like a treasure from the Pyramids) then we have to give up what we have become accustomed to (a shepherd in Andalusia). And how many of us really want to give up what we have, what we know, what we are comfortable with?

Well... Santiago really wants the treasure... so he sells his sheep, buys a ticket for Africa (Tangiers) and heads off on his quest. He reaches Tangiers and is promptly robbed of his gold. Santiago has a bit of a rethink of this adventure business... because it would be easy enough to turn tail and head home... He realizes that he can choose to see himself as the poor victim of a thief or as an adventurer in quest of treasure. I do have to say... if Santiago hadn't had any challenges on his quest, it would have made for a pretty boring story... All is not lost for Santiago talks himself into a job with a crystal merchant. From the merchant he learns how much money and time it would take to get to the Pyramids and... he's down in the dumps again. He figures he'll earn enough to head back to Spain and call it quits but... that isn't the end of the story...

I can totally sympathize with Santiago... it takes guts to turn the apple cart upside down and head off into the unknown. It's far safer to stay with what we know... even if it means that we have to give up our Personal Legend or dream or calling. We really don't want to be pulled through the keyhole of life... on the other hand, sometimes life pulls us through the keyhole anyhow... So why not at least know that we are headed in the direction of our Personal Dream while that's happening? I guess the other aspect of this is... how many of us know what our Personal Dream is? Maybe as kids we had a sense of it... but as we get older and more "sensible"... after adults convince us that dreams don't put food on our plates and roofs over our heads... our dream gets lost in the underbrush. Because as we get older, life gets more complicated. We have more responsibilities... more demands on our time... more things that we think are really, really important. Although... The Little Prince would tell us that adults are really out of touch with what is important. Sooo... kudos to Santiago for hearing and listening to his Personal Dream!