Curative Response to Idealization
What is an Alchemist? Is it a spiritual place of being or can it be a form of leadership? According to blogger and networking transformation expert Jorge Tabora an alchemist is, “A leader who integrates material, spiritual, and societal transformation.”
In Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist the young protagonist Santiago, goes in search of not a precious stone in the exotic and new world of Egypt, but rather a curative form of enlightenment, a form of inner dependency that will allow him to find that flock, that community that he wishes would depend on him, as a potential leader.
“They are so used to me that they know my schedule,” he muttered. Thinking about that for a moment, he realized that it could be the other way around: that it was he who had become accustomed to their schedule”(4).
This quote symbolizes Santiago as being one among his herd but yet to find his Personal Legend. which is his desire to have an direct influence on other’s lives. In reference to that, he also later says “ They trust me, and they've forgotten how to rely on their own instincts, because I lead them to nourishment” (14). This portrait of Santiago the sheep herder, the ideal leader who lives off of the land seems to not yet be an alchemist that Taborga described. As he does become more and more spiritually in touch with nature but has yet to provide societal change.
Throughout his jouney towards the pyramids, he becomes skeptical of the nature of life and the significance of intellectually stimulating individuals he interacts with. Until he meets the Gypsy woman and Melchizedek, beyond the great plains; a place of pristine beauty and into the real world he thinks only of the present and not the future.
Santiago as I mentioned, is initially cast off as rather an introverted individualist, who is conscious of the world around him and reflective but not yet fully able to take action because his uncertainty of reaching a destiny that is not fully defined and within reach.
Santiago the sheepherder, itself is a religious portraits of community and self efficacy: a strength of one’s own believe in reaching reassurance and therefore as Coehlo puts it, a becoming of one among the “Warriors of the Light” (27).
Santiago seems burdened with an unconscious desire to fully feel independent and capable of not only physically taking charge but also spiritually and intellectually in a community to which he feels he belongs. This is suggested due to the duality of his thoughts. His thoughts transgress from materialistic in which reflects on his father’s wishes for him to have a practical and secure life. There is also his relationship with the merchant’s daughter to whom he says is not important because she is not dependent of him.
Throughout the start of Santiago’s journey he is sure of his path as a shepherd until he starts reflecting his father’s definition of self-efficacy, which is when an individual settles down in the real world to support his family. Having both the gypsy and the “King of Salem” assuring his that he has not found it yet makes his strive to seek “ a leader within himself,” an advocate.
This portrait relates to my question as my question pertains to leadership on a personal level. My question mentioned in the previous blog of : At what level is leadership defined by a community and how does this relate to Santiago’s character development? I will seek to unveil the close ties between Santiago and the people he meets throughout his journey to reach the alchemist, or rather himself; the development of Santiago the sheepherder and how this symbolic community is strengthened as he moves forward.
In relation to Santiago’s, developing inner dependency I will use him as a model in formulating how a public health advocate is born and how I can begin to be not only be skeptical about health official’s approach to a current topic at hand such as Ebola and instead redirecting that fear behind this epidemic to instead learning about how public health experts can reassure communities about the realities of disease.
