Aleena Norris: Outside Reading - The Alchemist

 The Alchemist revolves around a shepherd who is realizing his "Personal Legend." The shepherd chose this occupation solely because he knew he wanted to travel. On one of my favorite pages in the book, he is having a conversation with a wise old man about personal legends and the baker in town. The man tells the shepherd that the baker too wanted to travel, "But he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he's an old man he's going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of" (Coelho 25). The boy states that the baker should have been a shepherd and the man tells him that he decided not to because bakers are more important people than shepherds in society. The old man continued, saying: "in the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own personal legends" (Coelho 25). This page reminded me of our conversations about encounters with beauty on one of the first days of class. One student told a story of a dance that was shared with her grandmother. A teenager at the time, she was frightfully aware of the judgements of people watching but her grandmother shared words with her that brought her back to an enjoyment of the present moment. These are both examples of how true beauty and serenity exist only when you allow yourself to become fully immersed, the opinions of others completely irrelevant. Beauty is individual, and arguably different for each that experiences it. It is not meant for everyone to understand, but really those that are paying attention, oblivious to the judgements of others for embracing it.