By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho
After reading By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept I immediately fell in love with Coelho's writing style. It's simple, very Hemingwayan, and, with its short chapters, caters to my preferred reading style.
I can't believe I only discovered Paulo Coelho now
The Alchemist was originally published in Brazil when I was 8 years old, and the first English edition came out when I was 13. I'm not sure, when they translated it to any other languages I understand, but still can't believe it took me over three decades to discover it.
My only excuse is, that I rarely read fiction, and the funny thing is, that The Alchemist wasn't actually the book which helped me discover Paulo Coelho; it was actually By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept. It was a book which came up as an often suggestion by various people from all across the globe, and I ordered the paperback a while ago at Amazon, and it was resting on my To-Read shelf until I packed it for this year's vacation in Toscana.
After reading By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept I immediately fell in love with Coelho's writing style. It's simple, very Hemingwayan, and, with its short chapters, caters to my preferred reading style.
As usual, I won't even try to give you a summary of the book (your favorite AI tool can do that better), but I'll share some of the highlights that I found mesmerizing.
But we must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there are no rules. Some may try to control their emotions and develop strategies for their behavior; others may turn to reading books of advice from "experts" on relationships but this is all folly.
The heart decides, and what it decides is all that really matters.
Every day, God gives us the sun—and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist that today is the same as yesterday and will be the sate as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie bidden in the quiet that follows the Lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.
"The man's aggression was easy to see, so it was easy for us to refuse the role he wanted us to play. But other people also 'invite' us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to agree, to offer advice, to participate." He looked into my eyes. "Be careful. When you join in that game, you always wind up losing."
"Look at this table," he said. "The Japanese call it shibumi, the true sophistication of simple things. Instead, people fill their bank accounts with money and travel to expensive places in order to feel they're sophisticated!"
