I don't know how and when my love affair for Paulo Coelho's writing began. I am sure though that the first book that I read was By The River Piedra and not The Alchemist. And then, I read The Alchemist. And for some reason I lost the book. And then I read Veronika. And then The Zahir. I haven't stopped reading (and re-reading) his novels ever since. I lost track of how many Coelho books I lost because I keep on loaning it to someone, promising that it is a good read. Some of them were never returned to me (because of course, it is indeed a good read and they forgot to return it) so I keep on replenishing so I have the complete set! Yes, this is how my love affair for Coelho's books is.
I don't know why I love his writing so much. In his videocast, he said that he is an experiential writer. He needs to experience things before he can write. Maybe I could relate to that.
I always believed that my love for writing has sprouted from my love of books. As time passed by, somehow the patterns interchange. There are times that I am inspired to write because I have read something. There are also times that I need to read because I want to write.
Ever since I quit corporate life, I have become more attuned to my creative wind. My writing is very personal, most of the times and I know that a lot of people would stop in the middle of the blog and say, I don't care. I do not have credibility when it comes to food reviews because I have a black and white palate - it's either good or not. I can't do ratings. How do you qualify a 4 out of 5? My tongue hasn't been trained for that. I would love to have a travel blog but I seldom go out especially with my condition now so...
And so, I realized that I can't be a better version of someone else. As I said, I relate with Paulo's writing style: something experiential. Something raw, full of emotions. Something honest and is a journey to self-discovery. My blog can't be a version of someone else's. I really didn't care about statistics or page ranks. Or monetizing this blog. What I write here is just plain old me. What I go through every day. How I have given up corporate for the want of a baby. How I read to pass time. How I share my marketing knowledge to people who are interested at times. Those things that are essentially me. Nothing forced.
Which brings me to this -- something that I consider as a defining moment in my life. In my previous post, I was talking about wanting to have some inspiration and stumbling upon Paulo Coelho's videocasts. And I wrote about it because it mattered to me. I wrote about it because he lifted me from my creative drought, like he always does. And I tweeted him saying that he is my hero. Which is really true. (To validate that, you can search Coelho at the Search bar and find that a lot of my posts start with quotes by him).
And then this --
He re-posted my blog in his Twitter and Facebook pages. I was dumbfounded!
When your personal hero does this, how would you feel? What would you do? For guys, this is like Michael Jordan answering your tweet. (this could be a lame analogy, but...)
And so I love him even more.
I wanted to capture this moment in my blog because as I mentioned before, I have a really lame memory. Somewhere down the road, when things go rough, I could go back to this day and I know deep in my heart, it would lift me out of a pit.
And of course, this is my takeaway as again quoting Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist--
"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."
My heart is in writing. I wrote ever since I was a kid and I have forgotten it a lot of times. And at this point in my life when I have almost nothing, my writing gives me my treasure. I get paid now to write for blogs and for social media. I was able to have a personal connection with my hero because of it. And while I thought that the only things that could give me happiness were a high-paying job and an uber successful career - I was wrong! Because nothing beats the gratitude I have for experiencing these things given to me by the Divine at this point in my life.
Cheers,
Balot
