The alchemist

Just finished reading The Alchemist. It's a nice book...a very quick read, with words as simple as its message. I don't know if you've read it, but it basically says to believe in your dreams and struggle for them to the end. If you reach the end of the rainbow, the journey will have made you a better person, no matter what your pot of gold looks like. This is something I've sort of known all along...I guess it's innate to us...but Coelho summarized it neatly in the life of Santiago the Shephard.

There have been so many times when I really wanted to do something, but held back for some reason or the other. The universe lies in a grain of sand, so I'll give you the most mundane example ever, and this has happened to me a number of times. I'd be sitting in a classroom listening to a professor's lecture, and suddenly, I'd have this irresistible urge to ask a question. But then, this second voice would crop up, telling me that the question is stupid...something a freshman would know. So I'd fold my arms on my chest and sit tight, but I'd always be left with this nasty unease in my chest. The same unease you get when you're about to sneeze, but it never comes. And lo and behold, somebody in the class would often ask a similar question to mine. :)

I guess that unease multiplies as more and more wishes go unfulfilled. The worst realization is that they went unfulfilled simply because one let them.

That's why Coelho says that increasing knowledge requires not just reasoning, but action also. To give a mundane example again, there's an empty can of coke by my side. I can spend the whole day thinking about how I want it to be in the trash can. By the time the sun is bowing its head, I'll be exhausted, my thinking capacity drained, but the can won't have moved an inch. It'll only move when I pick it up and toss it into the garbage. The scenario may be comical in its stupidity, but I think the underlying principle is quite applicable to our daily lives.