It's just a dream...
Would you go to any limits to fulfill your dreams or you'd rather spend your whole life only dreaming? Is it even a dream if you don't try to achieve it?
Some say, dreaming is more joyous and liberating, whereas fulfilling it breaks you and drains you with obstacles at every corner. Others say it's the experiences along the journey that make you strong.
I was smouldering in the Iron Flame that jumping to another book seemed like the only way out. Usually, I take breaks and don't like to get out of the zone of a nice book immediately but it was getting on my nerves, so I had to do it.
The book that rescued me was none other than The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. I read this book some 15 years ago for the first time. I was so excited about it at the time because of all the hype, but no book had disappointed me the way it did. At first, I was furious at what I read and then at people who had never read a single book in their life but they made an effort to read Alchemist and on top of that they loved it.
Perhaps, something was wrong with me.
I haven't met a single person till date who has read Alchemist and they don't like it. Therefore, I promised myself to give it another try someday. Thinking, 15 years later, I should be mature and might be able to perceive philosophy and spirituality differently.
With time, I also realized I'm not someone who can be fixed with a manual in the form of a self-help book. For me, the fixing and the motivation to do better come within, not even from the people around me. Still, I wanted to give this book another chance to impress me.
I know Alchemist is more of a symbolic book but let's not deny the numerous life lessons it holds. I also admit, reading it a second time made me somewhat appreciate it. It's an engaging read for which I give it full points. Having said that, I'm still struggling to digest some parts of the book.
It's a short book, took me only a couple of hours to finish it and since I'm in its aura now, I want to quickly leave my thoughts here before they dissipate.
Dreams!!
I want you to read the first two paragraphs again and would appreciate it if you could share your thoughts below...
Here are mine...
I consider myself a practical person. It's not like I don't have dreams or that I don't respect dreamers or those who romanticize life. It's just that I wouldn't chase a dream if it puts my present at stake. I don't want to die chasing something that makes me forget to appreciate what I have in my hands.
Whereas, The Alchemist gives the message of chasing your dreams at all costs. The boy in the book gave up everything, and went through tumultuous times, all because of a dream (not even aspirational, it was a nocturnal dream). It's not like he wasn't already living his dream life as a shepherd who gets to travel to new places. It was his childhood wish to live such a life. And then one day, he had another dream for which he left everything.
I think sometimes it's ok to pursue your dreams. When the boy was young, he had nothing to lose. He didn't want to live in one place, so he became a shepherd who could travel. An understandable choice. To fulfill the second dream (which was a recurring nocturnal one), he risked his life and lost his small hard-earned wealth more than once.
Was the second dream worth all this trouble? I understand it's up to the individual to decide the worth of his dream. But what if he had other responsibilities like that of a family. Would it have been fair to leave them behind, risking everything just because you have to fulfill some dream of yours?
It's my dream to travel the world. Would it make me any less of a dreamer, if I say, I have the money to solo-travel a couple of places but I'd rather save that money to provide a better life for my family or simply use it wisely to avoid going broke and just wait for another opportunity?
These days a term 'millionaire mindset' is very common. There are online gurus who promote money is everything and sell you weird ways of making money. People work hard for financial security. It's not a bad thing. But forgetting to live life in the process or why you wanted to have so much money in the first place... that's not fulfilling a dream but rather an unhealthy obsession, unless "making money" was your only dream. And if this was your dream, there is no end to it. The greed will never let you take a break.
I felt the boy in the book didn't appreciate the good fortune he accumulated over time and went after more (a treasure apparently). Although, it ended well but it could have gone wrong at any step and you can't take such risks in practical life.
I am annoyed at this book because it gives the message of pursuing all dreams even if they are stupid and risky, and make your present life and the lives that are linked to yours miserable for an unknown future.
There were some more parts in the book that were above my intellectual level. I know it's fiction, but then anything imaginary in literature is fiction. Little mysterious events here and there were okay, I could say it was all in the boy's head. But towards the end, when he turned into a wind, and everyone saw it... I don't know which level of mysticism was that. I would be happy if someone who has read the book could put some sense into my mind.
Overall, the little messages in the book were great. I only have issue with the main message of following dreams. I'm sure many people would differ with me on this. But I guess, everyone has a different take on life.
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
Does it?
How?
Why?
Don't hate me dreamers for these treacherous thoughts...I'm a dreamer too but my mantra is to, dream big but realize wisely.
That really made me laugh. 🤣🤣🤣 Paulo Coelho is a modern and very popular author in my country (or at least he was. I don't know how it is now). But he has a reputation for being read by quite a few ordinary people/women/models/mistresses, precisely those who lack the capacity and desire to read books at all. I don't know why that is, since I find his books even boring, hard to read, even incomprehensible. But fashion itself imposed them as must-read books. And I don't know if that's actually why I don't like them. But I am one of those people who is not impressed with The Alchemist, I even found it boring. In another of his books, I found blatant plagiarism and borrowings from other places, and it totally turned me off from "his work".
Anyway, the subject of dreams is surprisingly complex. And that's because it's extremely subjective (like everything in life?) I'm a practical and reasonable person too, but over the years I've come to admire more and more people who have stepped out of the box and followed their dreams.
That seems pretty crazy, yes. Even I have taken actions that seemed crazy to others. I don't think these actions were successful, but on the other hand, I also think that if I hadn't tried, maybe in another 20 years, when I won't be able to do things like this, I'll regret not trying. At least now I can say: I tried, but I failed.😆
Of course, when one is tied to one's own family, things look different. But at the same time, I've seen and heard of people who just drop everything at one point because they realize that life is short and maybe it's worth following their dreams instead...
But here's what I think is the right attitude too: if a person feels comfortable in his place, with his way of life and the people around him, he can sometimes dream of something different, but that's a kind of fringe, a luxury, just a dream. But if a person is not happy at all in the place where he is, with his lifestyle, the people around him, then taking action to achieve something else/his dream is necessary, it is even mandatory. So, it depends on which of the two groups one falls into.
This is my attitude towards dreams 😃
In which book you found plagiarism? I read Eleven Minutes but I plan to read it again because apparently I don't understand his books at first attempt. 😅 Veronica decides to die is also resting on my shelf for the last 7 years, couldn't go beyond the first chapter.
I have respect for those people too. Not everyone has the courage or guts to chase the dreams. I also get it that life is short and you live only once.
The only problem I had with the book and like you said - dreams are subjective. Everyone has different circumstances. Not all people can afford to risk what they have for what they might have. Therefore, it's not right to preach to follow dreams blindly and thinking less of those who don't follow.
One thing I forgot to mention in the post - the whole concept of omens sounded too silly. Not every other thing happening around you is an omen and a signal to leave everything and run after your dream.
Your attitude towards dreams is great and I think I have a similar take. If you are already happy then it doesn't hurt dreaming or longing for something else. It keeps you alive. But if you are not happy then a dream becomes a driving force (like weisser-rabe also said), you should chase it.
I read a few of his books quite a few years ago. I don't even remember when, maybe 10. They weren't many, some I also couldn't continue after a few pages. But I think it was The Pilgrimage, which I also found boring, but I wanted to read it for personal reasons, which struck me as borrowing a lot from the Bible without even mentioning it, because it was presented as whole (personal) incidents and experiences. It just so happened that I was looking for something in the Bible at that very time and that's how I saw it. The whole thing left me with just an unpleasant feeling, a very special one. To me, this man is not a good writer, he has achieved fame by chance.
And I forgot to mention that the universe is not at all conspiring to help you achieve your dreams. There are a lot of people who are fixated on searching every minute of their daily lives for signs and symbols (even Paulo Coelho has continued his career this way, from what I've read.😄) But to me, all this esoteric stuff is just a money machine again. Some people write books about how they fixed their lives and achieved their dreams. Read me and follow my steps. Right? It doesn't work like that. Also, too much dealing with the esoteric has caused many people to suddenly become scared and give up on it. Well, ok, that's another topic. But 'silly' and superficial, that's what indeed these things look and sound like, and they're probably on purpose so they can reach as many people as possible.
And yet Pilgrimage is one of his famous work.🤦♀️
I can't agree more. A few years ago, I used to believe in stuff like 5 steps to nail this or that... Having tried myself and brutally failing made me realize that it's just a money-making strategy. Now I run miles away even if I smell something like this. I believe, if something worked for you in a certain way, it doesn't mean it will work for someone else in the same way or work at all, for that matter.
You are right, it's a whole different topic. I have thought to write about it multiple times, some painful experiences. 😅
Maybe some day.
This too made me smile again. 😅 Many of us have fallen into this trap, but not all of us admit that we have been deceived. Life is much more complicated than following 5 steps. And as you say, if something works for one person, it doesn't work for another. Not to mention that such books are often written by people who have not been able to cope with their own problems, but at least they have found a way to make money, in a word - fraudsters.
Maybe it all starts from the fact that people don't want to admit that they have a hard time in life. We all have it difficult to one degree or another, in one aspect or another, because life is not easy to begin with. But everyone keeps quiet about it, publishes books, lies to people, it's all a scam.
Since I started writing here about what's happening to me and how I feel (because I can't anywhere else), I don't know if it's helped me at all, but I think it would have been a lot worse if I didn't talk about it at all and I kept it all inside me.
I say this to encourage you to write further 😊
Your last sentence says it all... ;-))
I like my dreams (the life dreams - I have no memories of the night ones). I was able to fulfil a few of them. A few are unrealisable. Both are completely okay. Some serve as a goal and driving force, others as a mental haven of peace, a place of longing.
It's great if you can differentiate between the one and the other ;-))
This... I find solace in the latter too. Keeps me alive. 🔥
Along with...
https://steemit.com/hive-107855/@aminasafdar/sgv4yn
https://steemit.com/hive-107855/@djanita/sgtr5j
https://steemit.com/hive-107855/@grebmot/sgvw2m
https://steemit.com/hive-107855/@soulsdetour/sgu6w0
Hey, what's up!
I suppose everybody fantasizes about things, but to me it seems like dreams rarely turn out the way you think they would. Nothing really does. Even if, what then? So you accomplished perfection and became some kind of master of the universe. You're some enlightened, godlike being! Then you realize what goes up must come down, or how this too shall pass, and now you're afraid of losing it all. Your health, your money, your partner. And you will! Maybe you start dreaming about some idealized version of the past, ironically enough. Anything but the actual present.
Then there's the dreams that don't come true. The shoulda coulda type of stuff. Like you being attached to some unrealized notion of greatness and the aforementioned notion of perfection. Either way, you chasing your dreams is akin to a donkey chasing a carrot dangling from a stick. Some kind of psychological placeholder meant to distract you from whatever -this- is. Even that idea might turn into another object to chase, like the concept of mindfulness or spirituality.
Don't get me wrong, doesn't mean you shouldn't have goals, but... I don't really know. I'm starting to think nobody does and essentially life is just like staying at a remote bus stop, or a train station. You arrive and you have about 80 years to kill, until you catch your next connection. Nothing really matters ultimately, besides your decision on how to spend that time. Personally I've been feeling disllusioned with my own desires, my dreams, and figure my chase is hollow. At least it doesn't seem worth the effort, in terms of its cost-benefit ratio. I just wish I was happy with what I've got, in some unattached kind of way. Or rather without death-grasping the past in the face of change.
Heard some interesting thing regarding buddhism. They have a concept called the hell of hungry ghosts afaik, which seems to be an allegory for personal desire. The hungry ghosts have thin long necks and big bellies, so their appetite can never be fulfilled just due to the nature of YOU, as in you being the cause of your own suffering. I'm sure I'm butchering the idea, but maybe you get what I'm trying to say.
Circling back to spirituality for a moment. I haven't read the Alchemist but your descriptions reminded me a lot about other self-help books and movies like Eat, Pray, Love. There's this idea called spiritual materialism that seems to apply. Heard the argument how sometimes being "spiritual" still might be a cleverly disguised expression of the same materialistic vanity. It's not like those status symbols were gone, it just that the fast cars, the golden wrist watches, and sexy women were replaced with stuff like zafus, yoga pants, prayer beads, or mental objects for that matter. So instead of bragging about your job you end up bragging about how egoless you are, or how long you can sit. You know, one-upmanship.
Oh btw. good read! Can't wait to read the next one!
I always think about this too - what will happen if I achieve a particular dream? In fact, I was able to realize some dreams and it was astonishing for me to notice that I wasn't thrilled as I was before or as I should have. I have started to think that nothing makes me ecstatic - fulfilling dreams should be able to do that, no?
It's okay to dream but not at the expense of ruining your present. Life is too short to long for a certain type of future or regret over shoulda coulda past.
This mindset...! We forget that nothing really matters. Just a couple of decades to kill. But our life gets affected by the social constructs intentionally or unintentionally.
Never heard of it before. But a perfect example.
Couldn't agree more.
Thank you for stopping by. It was an enlightening comment.
Oh, my pleasure :-)!
Yeah, I guess so. In theory fulfilling your dreams should be this amazing experience, and it might be, for a day or two. At least that's what the back of the shampoo bottle says, when I'm bored enough to read it. Hell, maybe it will take years, but sooner or later you'll be getting that itch again. I know I do.
Part of the issue might be the overdrawn, unrealistic expectations we tend to have, rather than striving towards things on principle. On the other hand, the same Buddhist mandala depicting the hell of hungry ghosts argues that the wheel of life is being propelled by a mix of hatred, greed, and delusion at its center. Kinda relating to the whole idea about desire being the root of our suffering. The things we want, the things we don't want, our hopes and dreams, about as much as our fears and anxieties. Life IS suffering, but not necessarily in the agony kind of sense, but in terms of a type of chronic dissatisfaction, no matter if we fulfill our dreams or not.
Ok, so good so far, life is suffering caused by desire. What now? Should you desire to not desire? That's paradoxical, but Buddhists seem to argue for a start maybe just desire less. The paradox itself seems to be partially related to the idea doing and non-doing, which is paradoxical as well. What's personal action and what isn't? Clearly, if someone was hanging with one hand from a cliff and you just stood there doing nothing, that would be an action?! So now you're stuck and don't know what to do anymore, but either way you're still here. So what is it? And who are you supposed to be in the first place?
To me life seems like a deterministic chain-reaction, even though there might be some randomness to the equation. Either way, you're part of this sea of co-dependent phenomena influencing each other in some kind of unfathomable dynamic, where every action or non-action ripples through time and space. Like waves. In terms of that philosophical Daoism seems to argue your individual suffering might come from you trying to go against the dynamic, like holding on to a dream when it's time to let go. Or maybe remaining stagnant when you should've started paddling.
The Daoists got a few neat metaphors. In context of the ideal of "effortless action" they argue pulling on grass doesn't make it grow any faster, for example. But then at other times they argue effortlessness is actually the result of persistent hard work, but then maybe the absence of any type of forced effort at all. I guess it's a mix of all that, all depending on the situation.
Either way, I hope you like word salad :-)
Have a good one,
grebmot
This comment is curated by @ event-horizon.
that was weird to me too, otherwise the book was okay and those people fall for this book who had not read any other author before۔
i read his winners stand alone after first time purchasing this author, it was Okay, Okay?
then i got my hands on his Aleph and i was so disappointed, he writes weird things as if he is high and sell it as spiritualist thing۔
I had torn a few pages of that book(i had to) because he had written rubbish and i thought how would i react if i had to share this trash with others, does spiritualism also make you non sense and let you cross your boundaries?
Ajeeb
on a lighter note, he is the favourite author of the current CM of punjab۔
Oh really? That's extreme. I wonder what was in that book.
I doubt if she can read at all. Or maybe she's like those people who have only read this one book in their entire life. 😅
kind of adult content sell to gain spirituality۔ it was (as i see) an exploitation of a girl by a man double of her age when they were on pilgrimage in asia,
the disturbing thing is that it was not a work of fiction and that man was poelo cohelo himself sharing his own life journey۔
just as our madrassa teachers exploit children and they are not aware of it۔
above all that stupid girl was in love with that old man, psychotic, isn't it?
once a legend said:
Aik to ye log parhay likhay ni hain or uper sy koshish bhi ni krte:)
The plot is giving me cringe since it's his own story.
Likewise😆
I really enjoy your piece about dream pursuit analysis. It quite interesting to discover this book again, I think I saw it last in older's Uncle shelve then I was aged 8, I have not seen this book again. For dreams aren't something to rely on unless it has any spiritual backup. Even then in a messy world we are many dreams are deferred to nothingness. I have many unfulfilled dreams probably due to the circumstances I find myself, I don't know how to chase them. The quote "when you want something the whole universe conspires in helping you achieve it" could be true but only on things really pertaining to you, otherwise you can chase in thousands of years, it won't still be given to you probably because they aren't really meant for you. I enjoy every bit of this writing. Weldone dreamer
This comment is curated by @ event-horizon.
hey!
The cover of the book itself reload a lot of memories in my mind. I remember when I was in school each and every person wanted to read this novel. They were literally crazy about it. And when I went to ask the librarian she would always told me that it taken. Hence, The hype was a lot . I am not a book nerdo .And I have just read one book in my entire life. But the way you are telling things ,your perspective and belief wants me to give this novel a try.
For me,.I think that if you can dream it you can make it and there is no such thing as impossible that is stopping you to achieve your dreams. A lot of people work really hard to achieve there dreams , and then there are people like me who just dream but don
t wanna make an effort . Hence, we all have our own trusts and believing's and thats fine.you beautifully portray your thoughts and idea .
As I said I am not a book nerdo but i look reading book reviews.
I read one book ,it was psychological personality building and I did a review on it here on steemit .
I like to gives reviews on things whether they are books or skincare or movies.
So, thankyou for sharing your thought "its just a dream" with us .
have a great weekend!
Really? I didn't say good things about the book and you still want to give it a try. That means I wrote a very good, bad review. 😆
I'm mostly in that mindset. 🫣
exactly! you didn't said good things about it but my curiosity wants me to read this now .That 7 class girl in me wants to read this novel desperately if she finds it from some where XD .
I also believe in pursuing my dreams but not at the cost of neglecting the present. it is very important to consider current responsibilities you have and the potential risks involved. The book's message of chasing dreams at all costs can be controversial. Some may find it inspiring while others may feel it promotes impractical and risky behavior. But I think it is all about finding that balance .
Revisiting a book after many years can indeed bring a new understanding. It's clear that you approach "The Alchemist" with a clear and mature mindset. I agree that while dreams are an important part of life. Money can bring you joy and help you fulfill your dream if your dream is to visit some Country, of course without money you can't. Sometimes you have to risk your career for your dream. The honest questions you raise about the practical implications of the book's message add a valuable perspective to it.
I think it's all about maintaining the balance.
Yes, you are right.