The Alchemist - d e s t i n y

One of the most amazing authors I have discovered along with a million other people is Paolo Coelho. Wanting to write a book critique on 'The Achemist' - I found it overwhelming..where do I begin? It would take forever to write one.

Do i write about the characters Santiago encounters during his journey, the Englishman, the merchants daughter, the crystal merchant, the king, the alchemist, the robbers, Fatima.....

Or do I start of with the concepts in the book, 'maktub', alchemy, language of the universe, the tresure, the omens, the simum...

Or with the not so obvious yet significant 'things' like the book he has attempted to read but can never finish reading, or Urim and Thummim, the desert, the hawks...

Overwhelming....cause the list of topics to write about are endless...

Reading 'The Alchemist' excites me cause every time i read it I discover a new passage or a sentence which didn't make sense before make perfect sense to me now......So I underline (in pencil of course) the paragraphs or phrases that just stand out.....

A topic which pops up early in the book is the question of destiny. Is it Santiago's destiny to fid the treasure or to just continue to be a shepherd?

Got me thinking...

Do I believe in fate? - Not really...
Do I believe in destiny? Yes....HOWEVER....I do believe I can control my destiny. *my 2 cents input* I can sit around and wait for my destiny to happen and be served to me on a silver platter (very unlikely) or I can work my ass off and make my destiny come true.

"It's a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say." continued the old man. "It describes people's winability to choose their own destinies. And it ends up saying that everyones believes the world's greatest lie."

"What;s the world's gretest lie?" the boy asked, completely surprised.

"It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose contro of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."

The boy didn't know what a person's "destiny" was.

"It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young knows what their destiny is.

"At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny."

So if I belive in destiny - who decides what my destiny is?
Other people?
My parents?
Me?

Other people.....now that would mean I care about how I am perceived in society and I let that control me...cause I care too much about what others think of me and seek their approval so I live life with this facade....to me this is the scarriest thought...other people choose my destiny.

My parents...hahahahahaha...I can only imagine and laugh about it....what my parents want me to me...deciding my destiny....they have never decided what my destiny should be......in the past they have hinted what they wanted me to do in life, career wise, relationship wise.........to this day I will never forget the day I told my mother I wanted to go to art school....and I clearly remember her telling me 'No, I wont allow it'...ironic...it wasn't my fear to be an artist but her fear for me that stopped me.

Me.....yes I do believe I decide me destiny, however I also believe society and my parents also have an indirect say in this. It was the cociety I lived in at that time, how my parents raised me, the 'belief's that instilled in my and myself that creates my destiny.

Its my heart........as cheesy and corney as that sounds...for me this is true. Its my heart that tells me my destiny. *Another 2 cents of my thoughts about this*. I believe that if I want to fulfill one of my destiny and it comes from a positive place with no malice towards others and its a pure intention .....the whole world consipres and helps me a achieve it.

"And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."


"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point which, as we say in the language of the desert, one'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.'

"Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severly tested." - Its said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.



"That's the principle that governs al things," he said. "In alchemy, it's called the Soul of the World. When you want something with all your heart, that's when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It's always a positive force."


On my jouney to fulfilling my destiny......I have at times felt like I have gone through the depths of hell and back. Career wise for example, many times I have wished that the 'Soul of the world', did test me and did kill my heart...thus ending my journey towards my destiny. An easy way out, a way to quit so i can just follow the drift of Malaysian society of being complacent, surviving off of paycheck to paycheck where the work isn't hard...but easy enough.

I can always make that conscious choice of telling myself my destiny is to be a customer service consultant where I answer phone calls and have an easy job that pays me $2,500 a month and that's it. I think after 3 months I would either choke myself to death with the phone wires or bite my wrists to stop the mundane insanity. I can always that the easy way out and not fulfill the destiny my heart tells me. Why is it that people fall into this trap of 'just surviving life' and not willing to go further, and really listen to their hearts cause I know and everyone else knows tha they are better than that? If i don't use my heart ......then I would just be a lifeless person in this world that is just 'doing' rather than living.


Its the 4 letter F word, which we deny exists.....but half of the time we experience it. FEAR.

"Don't give in to your fears," said the alchemist, in a stragely gentle voice. "If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart."

I will be the first to admit that the dreaded F word has brought me down. Its always the fear of something.

The fear that I will fail
Th fear of looking like an ass when I do fail and everyone around me, lecturing and bitching with an I told you so attitude
Fear of the unknown.....I hate not knowing what's going to happen.
Fear of taking risks
Fear of what other people might think of me...if I fail
The fear of screwing everything up and bringing other people down with me

This fear is like cancer. It starts of small and it just grows bigger and eats up everything else...fear eats up self worth, self confidence, motivation, security.....etc.etc.etc....And in the end....I would just be in a vegetative state of nothingness ....


Sometimes I let fear get the best of me....I stop listening to me heart about my destiny and fear acts as a distraction to pursuing it.....like in a magicians act...where there's a cloud of smoke and its purely use to divert the audiences attention else where. This is where I use fear as an excuse to not listen to my heart and just stop in my tracks and go no where. As my heart screams louder and louder when I don't do anything....this is where the consumption of alcohol is increased...followed by an increase of food intake. For some avoiding their desiny due to fear, is masked with food, drugs, alcohol, sex, endless senseless partying, etc etc etc etc etc.......

*thinking for a while*
my heart that tells me what my destiny is. What does my destiny look like .......what is it exactly.....?

*thinking......

I really don't know what it would look like, but I go on a hunch a gut feeling if i'm in the right direction.

*thinking.....& rereading



so there you have it....a total of my 4 cents worth of input.
mel *r