"The Shepherd’s word touched Elijah’s heart. 'It is not difficult to rebuild a life, just as it is not impossible to raise Akbar from its ruins', the shepherd continued. 'It is enough to be aware that we go with the same strength that we had before. And to use that in our favour.'

The man gazed into Elijah’s eyes.

'If you had a past that dissatisfies you, forget it now.' He went on, 'Imagine a new story of your life, and believe in it. Concentrate only on those moments in which you achieved what you deserved and this strength will help you to accomplish what you want.' "



From “The Fifth Mountain”, a wonderful book of hope and rebuilding by Paulo Coelho

"According to the writer Jorge Luis Borges, the idea of the zahir comes from the Islamic tradition and probably arose in the eighteenth century. In Arabic 'zahir' means 'visible,' 'present,' 'incapable of going unnoticed.' It can refer to an object or a person, and that object or person gradually takes over our every thought, until we are unable to think of anything else. This could be considered a state of holiness or a state of madness."

- Paulo Coelho

" 'And I know why you're here...Like me, you've travelled from Istanbul, following the Silk Road.'

'On foot? As I understand it, that means crossing the whole of Asia.'

'It's something I needed to do. I was dissatisfied with my life. I've got money, a wife, children, I own a hosiery factory in Rotterdam. For a time, I knew what I was fighting for--my family's stability. Now I'm not so sure. Everything that once made me happy just bores me, leaves me cold. For the sake of my marriage, the love of my children, and my enthusiasm for my work, I decided to take two months out just for myself, and to take a long look at my life. And it's working.'



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"

" ' When do you leave?'

'I have to leave here at half past seven in the morning. Since you're flying to Berlin, we could share a taxi.'

'Where are you going?'

'You know where I'm going. You haven't asked me, but you know.'

'Yes, I know.'

'Just as you know that we're saying goodbye at this very moment.'

'We could go back to the time when we first met: a man in emotional tatters over someone who had left him, and a woman madly in love with her neighbour. I could repeat what I said to you once: 'I'm going to fight to the bitter end.' Well, I fought and I lost. Now I just have to lick my wounds and leave.'

'I fought and lost as well. I'm not trying to sew up what was rent. Like you, I want to fight to the bitter end.'

'I suffer everyday, did you know that? I've been suffering for months now, trying to show you how much I love you, how things are only important when you're by my side. But now, whether I suffer or not, I've decided that enough is enough. It's over. I'm tired. After that night in Zagreb, I lowered my guard and said to myself: if the blow comes, it comes. It can lay me out on the canvas, it can knock me out cold, but one day I'll recover.'

'You'll find someone else.'

'Of course I will: I'm young, pretty, intelligent, desirable, but will I experience all the things I experienced with you?'

'You'll experience different emotions and, you know, although you may not believe it, I loved you while we were together.'

'I'm sure you did, but that doesn't make it any the less painful. We'll leave in separate taxis tomorrow. I hate goodbyes, especially at airports or trains stations.' "



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"

" 'The Zahir?

Yes, it had disappeared, but now I realised that the Zahir was more than a man obsessed with an object, with a vein in the marble of one of the twelve hundred columns in the mosque in Cordoba, as Borges puts it, or, as in my own painful case for the last two years, with a woman in Central Asia. The Zahir was a fixation on everything that had been passed from generation to generation; it left no question unanswered, it took up all the space; it never allowed us even to consider the possibility that things could change.

The all-powerful Zahir seemed to be born with every human being and to gain full strength in childhood, imposing rules that would thereafter always be respected:



- People who are different are dangerous; they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women.

- We must marry, have children, reproduce the species.

- Love is only a small thing, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this is considered perverse.

- When we marry, we are authorised to take possession of the other person, body and soul.

- We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organised society, and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill.

- We must buy jewellery; it identifies us with our tribe, just as body-piercing identifies those of a different tribe.

- We must be amusing at all times and sneer at those who express their real feelings; it's dangerous for a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings.

- We must at all costs avoid saying 'No' because people prefer those who always say 'Yes', and this allows us to survive in hostile territory.

- What other people think is more important that what we feel.

- Never make a fuss. It might attract the attention of an enemy tribe.

- If you behave differently, you will be expelled from the tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organise in the first place.

- We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call in a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have.

- We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit the current ideal of beauty, we must fast, even if we're starving.

- We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country's frontiers, with time away so that retirement comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hairstyle, criticise anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday, depending on our religion, and there beg forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with pride because we know the truth and despised the other tribe, who worship a false god.

- Our children must follow in our footsteps; after all, we are older and know about the world.

- We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study.

- We must study things that we will never use, but which someone told us was important to know: algebra, trigonometry, the code of Hammurabi.

- We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy.

- We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private, because I am the all-powerful Zahir, who lays down the rules and determines the distance between railway tracks, the meaning of success, the best way to love, the importance of rewards.' "



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"

" 'Some time ago, I was in Geneva for a series of interviews. At the end of a day's work...I set off for a stroll around the city. It was a particularly lovely night, the streets were deserted, the bars and restaurants still full of life, and everything seemed utterly calm, orderly, pretty, and yet suddenly...suddenly I realised that I was utterly alone.

Needless to say, I had been alone on other occasions during the years. Needless to say, my girlfriend was only two hours away by plane. Needless to say, after a busy day, what could be better than a stroll through the narrow streets and lanes of the old city, without having to talk to anyone, simply enjoying the beauty around me. And yet the feeling that surfaced was one of oppressive, distressing loneliness--not having someone with whom I could share the city, the walk, the things I'd like to say.

I got out my mobile phone; after all, I had a reasonable number of friends in the city, but it was too late to phone anyone. I considered going into one of the bars and ordering a drink; someone was bound to recognise me and invite me to join them. But I resisted the temptation and tried to get through that moment, discovering, in the process, that there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist of not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and the the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.

I began to imagine how many millions of people were, at that moment, feeling utterly useless and wretched--however rich, charming and delightful they might be--because they were alone that night, as they were yesterday, and as they might well be tomorrow. Students with no one to go out with, older people sitting in front of the TV as if it were their sole salvation businessmen in their hotel rooms, wondering if what they were doing made any sense, women who spent the afternoon carefully applying their makeup and doing their hair in order to go to a bar only to pretend that they're not looking for company; all they want is confirmation that they're still attractive; the men ogle them and chat them up, but the women reject them all disdainfully, because they feel inferior and are afraid the men will find out that they're single mothers or lowly clerks with nothing to say about what's going on in the world because they work from dawn to dusk to scrape a living and no time to read the newspapers. People who look at themselves in the mirror and think themselves ugly, believing that being beautiful is what really matters, and spend their time reading magazines in which everyone is pretty, rich, and famous. Husbands and wives who wish they could talk over supper as they used to, but there are always other things demanding their attention, more important things, and the conversation can always wait for a tomorrow that never comes.

That day, I had lunch with a friend who had just got divorced and she said to me: 'Now I can enjoy the freedom I've always dreamed of having.' But that's a lie. No one wants that kind of freedom: we all want commitment, we all want someone to be beside us to enjoy the beauties of Geneva, to discuss books, interviews, films, or even to share a sandwich with because there isn't enough money to buy one each. Better to eat half a sandwich than a whole one. Better to be interrupted by the man who want to get straight back home because there's a big game on tV tonight or by the woman who stops outside a shop window and interrups what we were saying about the cathedral tower, far better that than to have the whole of Geneva to yourself with all the time and quiet in the world to visit it.

Better to go hungry than to be alone. Because when you're alone--and I'm talking here about an enforced solitude not of our own choosing--it's as if you were no longer part of the human race.

A lovely hotel awaited me on the other side of the river, with its luxurious rooms, its attentive employees, its five-star service. And that only made me feel worse because I should have felt contented, satisfied with all I had achieved.

On the way back, I passed other people in the same situation and noticed that they fell into two categories: those who looked arrogant, because they wanted to pretend they had chosen to be alone on that lovely night, and those who looked sad and ashamed of their solitary state.

I'm telling you all this because the other day I remembered being in a hotel room in Amsterdam with a woman who was talking to me about her life. I'm telling you all this because, although in Ecclesiastes it says there is a time to rend and a time to sew, sometimes the time to rend leaves deeps scars. Being with someone else and making that person feel as if they were of no importance in our life is far worse than feeling alone and miserable in the streets of Geneve.' "



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"

" 'The acomodador or giving up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappointment in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand can make cowards of us and prevent us fro moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden powers, the shaman must first free himself from that giving-up point and, to do so, he must review his whole life and find out where it occurred.' "



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"

" '...a husband and wife who have been together for ten years. They used to make love every da, now they only make love once a week but that doesn't really matter because there is also solidarity, mutual support, companionship. He feels sad when he has to have supper alone because she is working late. She hates it when he has to go away, but accepts that it is part of his job. They feel that something is missing, but they are both grown-ups, they are both mature people, and they know how important it is to keep their relationship stable, even if only for the children's sake. They devote more and more time to work and to the children, they think less and less about their marriage. Everything appears to be going really well, and there's certainly no other man or woman in their lives.

'Yet they sense that something is wrong. They can't quite put their finger on the problem. As time passes, they grow more and more dependent on each other; they are getting older; any opportunities to make a new life are vanishing fast. They try to keep busy doing reading or embroidery, watching television, seeing friends, but there is always the conversation over supper or after supper. He is easily irritated, she is more silent than usual. They can see that they are growing farther and farther apart, but cannot understand why. They reach the conclusion that this is what marriage is like, but won't talk to their friends about it; they are the image of the happy couple who support each other and share the same interests. She takes a lover, so does he, but it's never anything serious, of course. What is important, necessary, essential, is to act as if nothing was happening, because it's too late to change.' "



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"



I know this story. It is much my story and more. I am so glad that I took action before it was too late to change. So glad, indeed. I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life in a stagnant, miserable, boring, unhappy relationship and situation.



I am glad to be free. Free to be myself. Free to be at peace. Free to find my happiness as I define it.

" '...I'm sad, because it makes me think that you're about to leave. I've know you would ever since we first met, but it's still difficult, because I've got used to being with you.'

'That's the problem, we do get used to things.'

'It's human too.'

'That's why the woman I married became the Zahir. Until I had that accident, I had convinced myself that I could only be happy with her, not because I loved her more than anything and anyone in the world, but because I thought only she could understand me; she knew my likes, my eccentricities, my way of seeing the world. I was grateful for what she had done for me, and I thought she should be grateful for what Ihad done for her. I was used to seeing the world through her eyes. Do you remember that story about the two firemen who emerge from the fire and one has his face all blackened by smoke?...Well, that is what the world was like for me. A reflection of Esther's beauty. Is that love? Or is that dependency?'

'I don't know. I think love and dependency go hand in hand.' "



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir

"In failed marriages, when one person stops walking, the other is forced to do the same. And while he or she is waiting, other lovers appear, or there is charitable work to get involved in, there are the children to worry about, there are long hours at the office, etc. It would be much easier to talk openly about things, to insist, to yell: 'Let's move on, we're dying of tedium, anxiety, fear.'"



From Paulo Coelho's "The Zahir"