i've been determined to catch up with my reading recently, after i realised that i had but read sporadically throughout the past 3 years, some of them just for leisure, and almost nothing substantial (also, i've been feeling more and more stupid). so after willing myself to complete the classics that i've been wanting to read (the lord of the rings trilogy and 1984) i planned to read the alchemist. the singapore poly colours section is perhaps the best library around, since the books are hardly ever loaned and there are always 2 or 3 of the same book that i want to borrow, so it's just a matter of will to complete desired reading material, since i can just renew the book for ever; no one ever reserves the books that i read.
however, i could not find the alchemist, surprise surprise. hell bent on reading paulo coelho, i took the valkyries of the shelf.
"why is it that we destroy the things we love most?" asks the first sentence of its blurb and i had my mind made up about what my next book is going to be.
why is it that we destroy the things we love most?
i've yet to finish the book and thus, i have yet to derive my own answer to that conumdrum. instead i'm going to just showcase the wisdom of coelho here and leave it as that. that's my problem, paulo said to himself as he started the car. i need some strong emotions. i need a challenge.
it's not just a problem of spiritual search, he continued thinking... he loved his wife but he was getting fed up with marriage. he needed some strong passion in his love, in his work, in almost everything he did in his life. and that went against one of nature's most important laws: every movement needs to pause at times.
he knew that if he continued the way he was, nothing in his life would last for very long. he was biggining to understand what j. had meant when he said that people wind up killing what they loved most.
later, he remarks: it was no longer a challenge, but rather somthing i knew very well, i lost interest. i realised that my path to magic was about to end; the unknown was becoming too familiar to me. in order to continue my path, i need something more, i need mountains that are taller and taller.
and thus, men destroys that which he loves, coelho presents, because he loses that love of that thing that he had conqured, feeling that they are mountains too small, feeling that he wants more, needs more, deserves more out of what he has. ultimately it is perhaps love, that destroys that which we love.
something that had left me thoughtful for the past few days was presented by coelho also. i had been wondering about the nature of "perfect love" bar God's love for men. the kind that has the highs and lows of a roller coaster ride, of passion, or a more serene go-kart race, thrilling, yet neither matching the highs, nor the lows of the rolloer coaster, a kind of moderation.
in other words, should a perfect lover be able to make you laugh? or is it enough that he/she doesn't make you cry?
chris, coelho's wife writes: meanwhile, no matter h hard she tried, she could not think of one moment when love brought her peace. it was always accompanied by agony, intense joy and deep sadness.
... loves comes to rest only when we are close to death. how strange.
"love at war", is the phrase that she coins, very aptly.