Azeril对《The Alchemist》的笔记(1)

全书

Az.：這個故事是如此簡單 它衹是告訴我們 追隨自己的心去生活。但無論如何簡單 聯結起生活 都不容易 而在長久的經歷之中 受著困境 傷害和懷疑的不斷侵蝕 依然保持對自己夢想深沉的信賴 更是不易吧。

Chapter ONE————————————
  The boy didn’t know what a person’s “Personal Legend” was. “It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is.
   “At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.”
“mysterious force” was, the merchant’s daughter would be impressed when he told her about that! “It’s a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your Personal Legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.” 
To realize one’s Personal Legend is a person’s only real obligation. All things are one. “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
There was also the merchant’s daughter, but she wasn’t as important as his flock, because she didn’t depend on him. Maybe she didn’t even remember him. He was sure that it made no difference to her on which day he appeared: for her, every day was the same, and when each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
  “That’s the way it always is,” said the old man. “It’s called the principle of favorability. When you play cards the first time, you are almost sure to win. Beginner’s luck.”
   “Why is that?” 
  “Because there is a force that wants you to realize your Personal Legend; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.”
‘The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.’
when you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favor.
I’m like everyone else—I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actuallydoes.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,” he had said.
This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one.
 
 Chapter TWO————————————
  “Why did you think we should have the display?” 
  “I want to get back to my sheep faster. We have to take advantage when luck is on our side, and do as much to help it as it’s doing to help us. It’s called the principle of favorability. Or beginner’s luck.”
He still had some doubts about the decision he had made. But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
But that disaster taught me to understand the word of Allah: people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. “We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”
 
“I’m alive,” he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. “When I’m eating, that’s all I think about. If I’m on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other. “Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.”
 
Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees, he thought.
 
“Don’t be impatient,” he repeated to himself. “It’s like the camel driver said: ‘Eat when it’s time to eat. And move along when it’s time to move along.
It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time.
 
And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.
 
“Well, maybe I just want to know the future so I can prepare myself for what’s coming.” “If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise,” said the seer. “If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”
 
“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream,” said the alchemist, echoing the words of the old king. The boy understood. Another person was there to help him toward his Personal Legend.
 
“You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love…the love that speaks the Language of theWorld.
 
  “I’m going away,” he said. “And I want you to know that I’m coming back. I love you because…”
  “Don’t say anything,” Fatima interrupted. “One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
 
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
 
“Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?” the boy asked the alchemist. “Because that’s what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer.”
 
“Your eyes show the strength of your soul,” answered the alchemist.
 
“This is why alchemy exists,” the boy said. “So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. “That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
 
Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.’”
 
“Where your treasure is, there also will be your heart,” the alchemist had told him.
 
As he was about to climb yet another dune, his heart whispered, “Be aware of the place where you are brought to tears. That’s where I am, and that’s where your treasure is.”