Philosophy of "The Alchemist" || A guest post

“When you set your heart at something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it”

-Quote from the book

So you’ve got a dream eh? You want to achieve it but you don’t know how? You want to feel inspired and motivated to live your life, and to taste how beautiful life can be? Well then you Lucky twat, have I got a book for you, my friend!

The book by writer Paulo Coelho is world renown and is considered by many a ‘modern classic’ and a ‘publishing phenomenon’. This was the work that brought the writer into the literary genre and he is still best known for writing ‘The Alchemist’.

!Spoiler Ahead!

The story revolves around a simple shepherd named Santiago who has had a dream about searching the treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. He meets with certain people on his journey who guide him towards his dream and we follow Santiago as he travels from Spain to Egypt in search of his treasure all the while making new friends who teach him valuable lessons on life and we even see our titular character falling in love and having his love reciprocated.

The story starts with him doing his daily chores with his flock of sheep while discussing about the dream he had last about traveling to Egypt. He sells his wool to a local merchant and talks to his daughter with whom he falls in love but realizes that she might never reconsider having a future with him as he has low social standing.

We follow him through the night when he meets with a robed man named Melchizedek (Try saying that with a mouthful of sweets, I dare you)

And they both undergo a conversation that defines what this book is all about, following your dreams…

Through his journey he loses all his money, and earns it back by working alongside an old crystal merchant who teaches him the life philosophy around ‘Maktub’ or fate as we call it, meets an English traveler who later understands that to see your dreams come reality you have to work for it instead of simply hoping about it.

Falls in love with a desert girl named Fatima who loves him back and encourages him to follow his dreams averts a bloody war, finds an alchemist, and talks to the soul of the world.

And in the end, he finally finds what he was searching for which was… you know what, I want you to read the book, it’s beautiful so I won’t spoil this section for you, so happy readings!

The lesson:

There is just one main lesson that we can learn from the Alchemist, apart from various miscellaneous teachings, is that you should never, ever give up on your dreams, on your goals. Your methods may change, your fate may change, but your destination can never change because…

“Once you set your heart to something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it”

- Melchizedek

Thank you for reading and please check out my blog Sushrut Writes on Wordpress for similar content.