I just finished reading The Zahir by Paulo Coelho  and it was such a wonderful read. I read a lot of books but not many that make me reflect on my life, and how to improve. I must first begin by saying Paulo Coelho is by far one of my favourite authors, the way he uses words to paint pictures is one of a kind. You really feel as though you are part of the story. I would love to be able to write such beautiful novels one day.

The Zahir  was written in 2005, Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian writer and first wrote this book in Portuguese. The book was then translated to 44 languages ! This book like The Alchemist, another one of the books Paulo Coelho wrote that is my favourite, revolves around pilgrimage, love, loosing love and obsession over love.  As I was reading the book, I felt the book was about him, and his life. Then by searching online, I realized that it was indeed an autobiography that was intended to be fiction.

I have learned so much in this book and want to share all my thoughts. I don’t want to make this post too long either, so I will continue the rest in another post ! Check out my first thoughts on the book below.

My thoughts

I literally just read the last page, and felt compelled to blog about it right away. Definite signs of a great book. Paulo Coelho describes “Zahir” as something that occupies your mind and body completely, something you can’t get rid of no matter how hard you try. It can be anything from a loved on, a job, a place and it can be different for everyone. “Zahir” first manifest itself ina  dream, because of how badly we want it. With time it becomes so strong that it takes over your every thought, you can’t think of anything else except for Zahir.

It can be a person who left us in our lives, a loved one who left, someone very close who passed away, these things can all be a powerful Zahir. It can be a place you visited that changed you, or a job that becomes a compulsion in your life. The book also speaks volumes on the fact that we all carry our personal history with us no matter where we are in life, or how far we go. Who we are, what our past is, which sometimes can occupy our minds with a state of sadness. The Zahir will have us in such a state of mind that we are prepared to go through any sort of sufferings for its sake. By doing so we are doing more harm to ourselves, as the book says “Do our loved ones want us to suffer for the sake of their happiness, the answer will obviously be no”

The easiest way to escape The Zahir and be content with life is to forget your personal history, which carry all the sufferings, pains and disbelief. In order to do this we have to empty our hearts by sharing our stories as much as we can with others and right away replacing that now empty space with new stories from other people. Sounds easy, but most of us don’t always have someone that we confide in to do this. Perhaps a way to deal with this is to refer to Writing Therapy. Instead of spending sleepless nights in bed, thinking of the pain, past history and the overwhelm of The Zahir, maybe writing before bed whatever comes to mind without caring about grammar, as though telling the story to a friend.  This is very easy and can be done once or twice a day for up to 15 minutes. ( I feel that I do this with the blog)

Before you know it, this writing therapy will help to completely empty ourselves and refrain our thoughts to reoccur over and over. Finally we may be freed from Zahir ! This is one way, but I would much rather go on a pilgrimage like Paulo Coelho.

Another great way may be to forget who we are, and act as the person we now are.