The Alchemist

Santiago is a shepherd. He loves his flock, though he can't help but
notice the limited nature of the sheep's existence. Seeking only
food and water, they never lift their heads to admire the green hills
or the sunsets. Santiago's parents have continually struggled for the
basics of life and have smothered their own ambitions accordingly.
They live in beautiful Andalucia, which attracts tourists to its quaint
villages and rolling hills, but for them it is no place of dreams.
Santiago, on the other hand, can read and wants to travel. He goes
into town one day to sell some of his flock and encounters a trampking
and a gypsy woman. They urge him to "follow his omens" and
leave the world he knows. The gypsy points him toward the Pyramids
of Egypt, where she says he will find treasure.
Crazily, he believes her. He sells his flock and sets sail. Sure enough,
disaster is met early on when a thief in Tangier robs him of his savings.
So much hard work and discipline for a little adventure! But strangely,
Santiago is not devastated, apprehending a greater feeling—the security
of knowing that he is on the right path. He is now living a different
life, in which every day is new and satisfying. He keeps reminding himself
of what he was told in the market before he left: "When you want
something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
Following the dream
This belief is a marvelous one, a support for anyone embarking on a
major project. Nevertheless, is it a hope based on nothing? If you think
about the energy you put into something once you are committed to it,
probably not. The "universe conspiring" to give you what you want is,
more precisely, a reflection of your determination to make something
happen. In reading The Alchemist, we are reminded of Goethe's
demand: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it—boldness
has genius, power and magic in it."
The book does not get away from the fact that dreams have a price,
but, as Coelho has noted in interviews, not living your dreams also has
a price. For the same money, he said, you can either buy a horrible
jacket that doesn't fit or one that suits you and looks right. There will
be difficulties in whatever you do in life, but it is better to have problems
that make sense because they are part of what you are trying to
achieve. Otherwise difficulties merely seem insidious, one terrible setback
after another. Dream followers have a greater responsibility, that
of handling their own freedom. That may not seem like such a price,
but it does require a level of awareness that we are maybe not used to.
The old man that Santiago meets in the town square tells him not to
believe "the biggest lie," that you can't control your destiny. You can,
he says, but you must "read the omens," which becomes possible when
you start to see the world as one. The world can be read like a book,
but we will never be able to understand it if we have a closed type of
existence, complacent with our lot and unwilling to risk anything.
Love
The Alchemist is remarkable for being a love story that renounces the
idea that romantic love must be the central thing in your life. Each person
has a destiny to pursue that exists independently of other people. It
is the thing that you would do, or be, even if you had all the love and
money you want. The treasure that Santiago seeks is of course the symbol
of the personal dream or destiny, but he is happy to give up on it
when he finds the woman of his dreams in a desert oasis. Yet the
alchemist he meets in the desert tells him that the love of his oasis girlfriend
will only be proved real if she is willing to support his search for
treasure.
Santiago's dilemma is about the conflict between love and personal
dreams. Too often we see a love relationship as the meaning of our life,
but the obsession with romantic coupling can cut us off from a life
more connected with the rest of the world. But surely the heart has
needs? Live your life around the dream, Coelho says, and their will be
more "heart" in your life than you can now comprehend:
"...no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams,
because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God
and with eternity."
Romantic love is important, but it is not your duty—that is to pursue your
dream. Only through devotion to the dream is the "soul of the world"
revealed to us, the knowledge that destroys loneliness and gives power.
Final comments
So much of the self-help literature is about pursuing our destiny, but
dreams do not always pull us along by their own force; they speak persistently
but quietly, and it does not take too much effort to smother
the inner voices. Who is willing to risk comfort, routine, security, and
existing relationships to follow something that to others looks like a
mirage? It takes courage, and dog-eared, stained copies of Coelho's
classic have become the constant companion of people who need to
make fearless decisions daily in order to keep true to a larger vision.