The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Why the title, “Joie de vivre“? In French it means the exuberant joy of being alive. Maybe the exuberant bit is an exaggeration, but it’s what the internet produced and I love it. If the thought of life being terrifyingly beautiful or powerful or scary doesn’t stir in one an exuberance of sorts, then I don’t know if this book will be as impactful for you as it was for me.
It was 3am when I listened to Paulo Coelho discuss the alchemy of his creator journey in an interview with Krista Tippett (called, On Being). He said “What is important is to have joy.” […] “But I see in the eyes of the people [of my country] something that I seldom see in the so-called developed countries. I see joy. Joy of life. The French, they have this beautiful expression — joie de vivre, joy of being alive. So let’s not use poverty or richness as a pattern to judge.”
I start my review and notes of my favorite book in this way because I feel the deeper undercurrent of Joy, within the writing of this story. The Joy of Being Alive was a strong mechanism which drove Santiago to live out his Personal Legend. And I argue that it is what drives us to find ours. Without it, we are aimless in our desert and could succumb to thieves, wild animals, the death of our joie de vivre, or worse – never leaving home.
“I couldn’t have found God in the seminary, he thought, as he looked at the sunrise.”
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Santiago, or “the boy” meets an old man who later reveals himself as a king. The king sets the boy off in search of a treasure and the following is said to the boy:
“Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend 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 Personal Legend.”
The boy was almost going to give up on his personal legend, like most people. The king came to him in the form of an old man to urge him to go on the journey. In a way, he is like the Muse of inspiration or creativity urging him to act while he was still young and unafraid to dream. The boy will soon become a man, settle in life and on the mediocrity of a life without dreaming. The old man was helping him fight against the mysterious forces that pull us into this direction.
These Mysterious Forces are fear, guilt, social pressures, familial pressures, and any other direct or indirect force that pulls you off your creative (creator) path.
I was an inventor, an unadulterated creator when I was a child; uncorrupted by opinions until I met new people, until my social circles got larger and I began to fit into spaces where I didn’t belong. It is an inversely-related relationship, which you would think otherwise, where as the number of [the “majority-type”] people increases, your individuality decreases. There is an entropy to life that must be actively fought against, or [who we are] collapses to non-existence or worse, conformity.
The world or “society” is like a giant pot – lukewarm at best, but mostly cold. In terms like thermodynamics, a hotter person placed into the giant cauldron of “lukewarm society” will “lose their heat” or their heat will transfer to the colder environment. According to this physics, society should be getting hotter. But because society is so massive, simply existing in it sucks the heat out of you. It is not a passive game. We must hang on to our fire at all cost or we will lose it.
Child-like wonder is what drives creativity. No wonder why adults claim they lack creativity. They also lack child-like curiosity, joy and simplicity. Children take risks before risks become their new buzzword. There is risk in creativity.
“…the soul of the universe…”
“when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”
The line, “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it” appears throughout the Alchemist with the boy realizing its truth whenever he faced difficulty or good omens.
“Everything in life is an omen…There is a universal language, understood by everyone, but already forgotten. I am in search of that language, among other things.”
The Englishman to the boy.
“…intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.”
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Read my creator journey here.
Consider Purchasing The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
I would only recommend this book if made a meaningful impact on me, which it did. I’m not in the business of wasting your time; I stand by it.
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