“When we renounce our dreams we find peace and enjoy a brief period of tranquility, but the dead dreams begin to rot inside us and infect the whole atmosphere in which we live.
What we hoped to avoid in the Good Fight – disappointment and defeat- become the sole legacy of our cowardice.
In love lies the seed of our growth. The more we love, the closer we are to the spiritual experience
The warrior of light
knows that intuition is God’s alphabet
and so he continues listening to the wind
and talking to the stars”. – Paulo Coelho
I liked The Achemist but there is nothing more masturbatory, more pseudo-intellectual or more disingenuous than a good Paulo Coelho quote.
What happens is that in trying to create this grand self-narrative, people ignore the reality of their senses and the life that’s right there next to them. What they end up creating is a simulacrum, an inferior, false world that only they inhabit. It’s sad too because it feels like you’re doing something special. There’s a reason all those quotes blurred together, because it’s not special. It is a joke.
Delusion doesn’t inspire me. Neither does the same recycled fortune cookie philosophy posted around by people who’ve yet to stop and think: Does sticking feathers up my butt really make me a chicken?
The reality of it all is less lofty but tangible and achievable and honest. Do what you enjoy and be a good person. It’s not that hard, most people won’t notice and that means you’re doing it right.
