Let’s set aside world issues for a while and focus on the beautiful (and useful/enlightening) things that humans have created, such as the book I recently read in one go, “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho.
After reading it, I can say that it has become one of my favorite books, but I don’t believe it is a book “for everyone.” I am convinced that nowadays, if many people were to read the words of “The Alchemist,” so simple, so “spiritual,” they would label it as “stupid” or “banal,” being completely unable to grasp its essence.
The Alchemist
In my opinion, “The Alchemist” is a book that anyone with an open mind and soul to spirituality, understood as harmony between oneself and the world, should read at least once in their life. However, for those who lack this openness, it would almost certainly be a pointless read, leading only to mental confusion and a book tossed aside with a “what nonsense” accompaniment.
“The Alchemist” is, in fact, a fable that in its simplicity (and here I must connect to some words that we can define as “of modern society” on how useless and discriminatory fables are… those who want to remember will remember), explores everything that is important, namely life in all its facets. Life external to us but also the life within us, the life that exists in humans as well as in plants, in the wind, and in the earth, and how these are ultimately one.
It also explores the importance of dreams and one of the things most forgotten today, thanks to a hurried society that bases everything solely on economic results, namely the importance of the journey rather than the destination. The importance of observing, learning from those universal languages that transcend words, of listening to one’s heart and oneself.
All while simultaneously showing how life works, through fortune, chance, coincidences, and difficulties, to make us become who we are meant to be. In the end, the whole book can be summarized with the metaphor of alchemy itself, which leads us to study and learn many things only to realize that the answer has always been simple and almost obvious. What it truly means to live.
I close by copying a part of the book that I really liked:
“I earn my living by guessing the future for others,” he had added. “I know the science of the sticks and how to use them to penetrate the space where everything is already written. I can read the past, discover what has been forgotten, and understand the signs of the present. When someone consults me, I do not read the future; I guess the future. Because the future belongs to God, and he reveals it only under extraordinary circumstances. And how do I guess the future? From the signs of the present. The secret lies only in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve it. And if you improve the present, what comes next will also be better. Forget about the future and live every day of your life by the teachings of the Law and with the trust that God takes care of His children. Each day brings with it Eternity.”
The camel driver had then asked what circumstances allow God to reveal the future.
“When He Himself shows it. And God rarely shows the future, and for one reason only: because it is a future that was written to be changed.”
Luca
