Polenta 2

Fran Polenta

Nancy Hanson

ENGL 1101

26 Sept. 2019

Finding Wisdom in the Ordinary Moments:

A Reader Response Essay on
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

One of the themes in Paulo Coehlo’s novel,
The Alchemist, is how Santiago learns valuable life lessons from the people he encounters as he pursues his personal legend. The first person he meets is a Gypsy woman who tells him, “It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them” (Coelho 15). She indicates she is not wise, and therefore cannot give him a full interpretation of his dream, yet her words about the “simple things in life,” the ordinary moments being the “most extraordinary,” are words that resonated with both Santiago and with me.

Immediately after Santiago meets with the Gypsy woman, he buys a book and sits on a bench to read and contemplate what the woman told him. He is annoyed that a man interrupts his reading, and even though he “was tempted to be rude, and move to another bench,” he had been taught to be respectful, so he lets this seemingly ordinary moment unfold (17). By engaging in conversation with the mysterious man, Santiago opens himself up to receiving one of the most extraordinary gifts in the novel: encouragement and advice from the supernatural figure who can see into his past and future.

Most of us can recognize the extraordinary events in our lives, but we might fail to see the ordinary moments in the way the Gypsy woman described, as “the most extraordinary” (17). Like Santiago, I have had many extraordinary moments in my life. I have revisited them often in my mind, probably because I realized their significance while they were happening. Yet similar to Santiago’s experience, I have had moments that appeared to be ordinary at the time, yet they ended up being extraordinary.

One such event occurred after I was reunited with an old friend. One of the first things he wanted to talk about were what books I had been reading. Our mutual love of literature was one of the things that had defined our relationship in the past, and he had missed our book discussions over the sixteen years we were apart. I remember his text to me that day: “What have you been reading lately?” I can only imagine his shock when I texted back, “I stopped reading a few years ago.”

Like Santiago who struggled to stay engaged with his book, I had been having a hard time finding the energy to stick with a novel. It felt like work to me. When my old friend came back into my life, however, he brought with him the knowledge about who I used to be, what I used to like, and what used to define me as a human being. My love of literature…of reading…was at the top of that list. I gave him a bunch of excuses about why I had stopped reading, but he could see right through them. The text he sent me next is what changed the direction of my life. He said, “I’m here to remind you of your passion for literature. You need to start reading again.”

Our text-exchange was an ordinary event, an ordinary moment in time, yet it did not take me long to recognize its significance. Does that make me wise? Maybe. More likely, it shows I do a great deal of self-reflection, and his words to me that day made me wake up and realize I wasn’t okay, and somewhere along the way, I had abandoned my passions.

My friend’s text set off a chain of events. First, I recognized I needed to address some personal issues and figure out why I had lost sight of my passions. Second, I realized in order to do that, I needed to go back to the things that used to bring me joy, so I tried to start reading again. It was too much for me to do alone, so my friend started reading with me. Just as Santiago needed a number of people to move him in the right direction, I needed a guide as well. Third, after I rediscovered my passion for learning, I decided to enroll in a college class, and then the next semester I enrolled full-time. I think it might be easy to say all of this happened because of my friend, but that gives him too much credit. I am like Santiago: I need my guides along the way, but ultimately, it’s
my life’s journey and
my personal legend. This discovery alone is an extraordinary moment.

By the end of the novel, all of Santiago’s discoveries are extraordinary, almost as if he taught himself to see the world differently. I have been teaching myself the same thing. If Santiago had not been self-aware, if he had not learned to look for and interpret omens, he would have walked away from the place “where his tears had fallen,” but he recognizes this place as an omen and starts digging for the treasure (161). Even though his treasure is not there, he needed to pause in that place so the real location of the treasure would be revealed to him.

I needed to pause, too, to reconnect with a life-long friend, to reassess where I was going and how I wanted to get there. Now, over two years later, my friend and I are still reading books together. In fact, we just finished our seventeenth book:
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. What started off as an ordinary question, “why don’t you read anymore?” led to an extraordinary change in my life, a change that brings me closer every day to realizing my personal legend. Like Santiago, I have come to see the magic of my ordinary moments and to recognize and cherish the guides the universe has sent me to help me along my way.

Works Cited

Coelho, Paulo.
The Alchemist. HarperOne, 1993.

Note: The novel listed here is a different edition than the one you ordered for class.