Alchemy of the Soul

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

That night, the boy slept deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart began to tell him things that came from the Soul of the World. It said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert, as the alchemist had said. Because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it. "Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's hearts, seldom say much about these treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, towards its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out of them - the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

It's been a while since I read anything so unabashedly romantic as The Alchemist; maybe A Hundred Years of Solitude is the closest parallel out of books I've read recently (as a side note, I find it somewhat interesting that Marquez came to mind, as he's Colombian and Coelho is Brazilian), although the quote on the back of the book jacket likening it to Le Petit Prince is right on.

It's a beautiful little book with a concept of a "Personal Legend" which everyone and everything has within them, waiting to be fulfilled. But people get in the way of their own desires, people find excuses not to follow the things that fill them with joy and enthusiasm, and wind up - perhaps not unhappy, but not as happy as they could have been. It is so easy to get sidetracked in this world, something I know from having seen all the kids who came out of theater school with me whittle away their time, making excuse after excuse about why they didn't audition, instead of just going out and doing it. And maybe that wasn't their dream, maybe they had to go through it to find out that they could live without it, but I can't shake the feeling that at least one of those people doesn't or won't regret that decision, or lack of decision.

When you have a dream, nothing else should matter. Not money, not family, not relationships, because if they are true, they will understand your dream and why you must pursue it. This might sound like a recipe for ending up alone at age 40, and maybe it is; but there are things you have to do for yourself, and let the other chips fall as they may. I like to think that improving yourself, that living in a way that makes you content with what you do and who you are, leads to more effective relationships; love without possession, giving and fulfilling. I could be wrong. But I like thinking that way, so I choose to.

Man, I really am a romantic sap. Pathetic.