The Zahir

It begins with a glimpse or a passing thought.
It ends in obsession.

I've always wanted to buy this book when I was in JC but it was kinda too expensive. The other day I saw it selling at $10 in some sorta warehouse store and of course, bought it. This book is by... Paulo Coelho, as usual... I guess I only have time to read his books.

And so, I spent the whole of last night reading and thinking about it till round 7am. Haven't finished it though, makes me feel like I'm floating around the whole day - like I'm away from reality. Well, its not that its unrealistic but it goes real deep, it feels as though its only you and the book - cut off from the world outside.

He wrote:

I learned something recently: our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad supportive faces, when in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives. When things were bad last year, various people I have never seen before turned up to 'console' me.

Haha... I guess that may be a lil controversial but something radical.

He also wrote, which I personally really like:

A young woman with shining eyes starts telling me the story. To begin with there was the city wall. The wall remained, but one part of it was used to build a chapel. Many years passed, and the chapel became a church. Another century passed, and the church became a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral had had its moments of glory, there had been structural problems, for a time it had been abandoned, then restoration work had distorted the whole shape of the building, but each generation thought it had solved the problem and would rework the original plans. Thus, in the centuries that followed, they raised a wall here, took down a beam there, added a buttress over there, created or bricked up stained-glass windows.
And the cathedral withstood all.

I walked through the skeleton of the cathedral, studying the restoration work currently being carried out: this time the architects guarantee that they have found the perfect solution. Everywhere there are metal supports, scaffolding, grand theories about what to do next and some criticisms about what was done in the past.

And suddenly, in the middle of the central nave, I realise something very important: the cathedral is me, it is all of us. We are all growing and changing shape, we notice certain weaknesses that need to be corrected, we don't always choose the best solution, but we carry on regardless, trying to remain upright and decent, in order to do honour not to the walls or the doors or the windows, but to the empty space inside, the space where we worship and venerate what is dearest and most important to us.

Yes, we are all cathedrals, there is no doubt about it; but what lies in the empty space of my inner cathedral?