Over the years, Paulo Coelho, the internationally acclaimed Brazilian author and songwriter, has been one of my “go to” sources for inspiration. He is most renowned for his novel The Alchemist a story about a young shepherd who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure purported to be buried in the Pyramids. Just what the treasure is no one knows, nor does the reader know if the shepherd will overcome the numerous obstacles that he must encounter in fulfillment of his quest. But what begins as a journey to find worldly goods ultimately turns into a tale of revelation as to the treasures we all have buried and hidden within ourselves.
Paulo’s life story mirrors somewhat that same type of quest. Born in Brazil, he attended a strict Jesuit school. From the time he entered his early teens his dream was to become a writer, but when he shared his ambitions with his parents, they chided him to follow his father’s more reasonable, logical and practical path by pursuing a professional career path as an engineer. At age seventeen, Paulo’s introverted personality combined with his unwillingness to follow a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution. He escaped three times before finally being released when he turned twenty.
Years later, reflecting on that time, Coelho remarked, “It wasn’t that my parents wanted to hurt me, but they didn’t know what to do…They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me.” Trying desperately to please his parents, Paulo enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer, but after one year, he dropped out and lived the life of a wanderer. He travelled throughout South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe. It being the 1960’s, Coelho eventually found himself caught up in the sex, drugs and rock and roll culture that was so popular at that time.
Eventually, he returned to Brazil and became a songwriter for some of Brazil’s biggest musical names, including the iconic Raul Seixas. In 1974, Paulo was arrested for “subversive” activities by the ruling military government who viewed some of his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous.
In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. It marked a turning point in his life. On the path, he experienced a spiritual awakening which he would later describe in his autobiographical book The Pilgrimage. Commenting on his life prior to his walk, Paulo said, “I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water – to use the metaphor in The Alchemist, I was working, I had a person whom I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer.” Soon after, Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter to pursue that dream.
What follows is a bit of the fruits of that dream in the form of a simple tale titled The Story of the Pencil from Paulo Coelho’s book Like the Flowing River which was published in 2006. Enjoy!
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:
“Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?”
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
“I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.”
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
“But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!”
“That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.
First quality: You are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.
Second quality: Now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
Third quality: The pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.
Fourth quality: What really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality:It always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.”
“…when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” ? Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacqué