Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - Everything Moves

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°157
Everything Moves

Everything moves. And everything moves to a rhythm. And everything that moves produces a sound; that is happening here and all over the world at this very moment. Our ancestors noticed the same thing when they tried to escape from the cold in their caves: things moved and made noise.

The first human beings perhaps looked on this with awe, and then with devotion: they understood that this was the way that a Superior Being communicated with them. They began to imitate the noises and movements around them, hoping to communicate with this Being: and dancing and music were born.

When we dance, we are free.

To put it better, our spirit can travel through the universe, while our body follows a rhythm that is not part of the routine. In this way, we can laugh at our sufferings large or small, and deliver ourselves to a new experience without any fear. While prayer and meditation take us to the sacred through silence and inner pondering, in dance we celebrate with others a kind of collective trance.

They can write whatever they want about dancing, but it is no use: you have to dance to find out what they are talking about. Dance to the point of exhaustion, like mountain-climbers scaling some sacred peak. Dance until, out of breath, our organism can receive oxygen in a way that it is not used to, and this ends up making us lose our identity, our relation with space and time.

Of course we can dance alone, if that helps us to get over our shyness. But whenever possible, it is better to dance in a group, because one stimulates the other and this ends up creating a magic space where all are connected in the same energy.

To dance, it is not necessary to learn in some school; just let our body teach us – because we have danced since the darkest times, and we never forget that. When I was an adolescent I envied the great “ballerinos” among the kids on the block, and pretended I had other things to do at parties – like having a conversation. But in fact I was terrified of looking ridiculous, and because of that I would not risk a single step. Until one day a girl called Marcia called out to me in front of everybody:

“Come on!”

I said I did not like to dance, but she insisted. Everyone in the group was looking, and because I was in love (love is capable of so many things!), I could refuse no further. I was ridiculous, I did not know how to follow the steps, but Marcia did not stop; she went on dancing as if I were a Rudolf Nureyev.

“Forget the others and pay attention to the bass,” she whispered in my ear. “Try to follow its rhythm.”

At that moment I understood that we do not always have to learn the most important things; they are already part of our nature. In youth, dancing is a fundamental rite of passage: for the very first time we feel a state of grace, a deep ecstasy, even if for the less tuned-in it is all just a bunch of boys and girls enjoying themselves at a party.

When we become adults, and when we grow old, we need to go on dancing. The rhythm changes, but music is part of life, and dancing is the consequence of letting this rhythm come inside us.

I still dance whenever I can. With dancing, the spiritual world and the real world manage to co-exist without any conflicts. As somebody once said, the classic ballerinas are always on tiptoe because they are at the same time touching the earth and reaching the sky.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as free e-books (PDF format) from the Smink Works Books site

Atlas Shrugged film in development with Jolie as star

A film version of Ayn Rand's iconic tome, Atlas Shrugged is in development with Angelina Jolie set to star.

According to a Wikipedia entry,

Atlas Shrugged is a film in active development by Baldwin Entertainment Group and Lions Gate Entertainment. Based on Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, a two-part draft screenplay written by James V. Hart was developed into a 127-page screenplay by writer-director Randall Wallace.

Angelina Jolie has been confirmed to play the role of Dagny Taggart, and Brad Pitt is rumored to be cast as either John Galt or Hank Rearden. Both are fans of Rand's works. Lions Gate Entertainment has picked up worldwide distribution rights. The film is expected to be released in 2008.

As of September 29, 2007, IMDb.com lists the film as being "Back in development".

Lionsgate has hired director Vadim Perelman to direct the film.

It is the 50th anniversary of the book, which was first published in 1957.

Over at The Atlasphere, Robert James Bidinotto expresses reservations on whether a film can capture the essence of the book and Rand's philosophies, and deliver according to fan expectations.

QUOTE: Robert M. Pirsig

"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands."

From the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - Fragments of a non-existing diary

Warrior of the Light
Issue n°157
Fragments of a non-existing diary

A Peruvian priest’s sermon

In my book “The Alchemist”, the young shepherd Santiago meets an old man in the town square. He is searching for a treasure, but does not know how to reach it. The old man starts up a conversation with him:
“How many sheep have you got?”
“Enough,” answers Santiago.
“Then we have a problem. I can’t help if you think you have enough sheep.”

Based on this extract, the Peruvian priest Clemente Sobrado wrote an interesting piece, which I transcribe below:

One of the biggest problems that we drag around with us all our life is to want to believe we have “enough sheep”. We are surrounded by certainties, and nobody wants someone showing up to propose something new. If we could only suspect that we don’t have everything, and that we aren’t all that we could be!
Maybe we are all faced with a very serious problem, namely that although we have the opportunity to help one another, the truth is that few people let themselves be helped.
Why is that? Because they think they have “enough sheep”. They already know everything, they are always right, they feel comfortable in their lives.
Almost all of us are like that: we have many things but few aspirations. We have many ideas already sorted out, and we don’t want to give them up. Our life scheme is already organized and we don’t need someone trying to make changes.
We’ve done enough praying, practiced charity, read the lives of the saints, gone to Mass, taken communion. A friend of mine once said: “I don’t know why I come to visit you, father. I am already a good Christian.”
On that day I could not help answering:
“Then don’t come to visit me, because there are a lot of people waiting to see me and they are all full of doubts. But one thing you ought to know: You aren’t bad enough to be bad, nor good enough to be good, nor holy enough to work miracles.
“You are just a Christian satisfied with what you have achieved. And all those who are satisfied have in fact renounced the ideal of always improving. Let’s talk about this some other time, all right?”
Ever since then, whenever we speak on the telephone he starts by saying: “this person who is calling hasn’t yet grown up as much as he could”.
Lord, give us always a dissatisfied heart.
Give us a heart where the questions that we never want to ask can be voiced.
Deliver us from our conformism.
Make us able to enjoy what we have, but let us understand that this is not everything.
Let us appreciate that we are good people.
But above all, make us always ask ourselves how we can become better people.
Because if we ask, then it is quite possible that You will come and show us horizons that we couldn’t see before.

Hakone, Japan

I finally manage to get my editor, Masao Masuda, to invite me to a traditional tea ceremony. We go to a mountain near Hakone, enter a small room, and his sister, dressed in the ritual kimono, serves us tea.
That is all. However, everything is done with such seriousness and protocol that a daily practice is changed into a moment of communion with the Universe.
The tea master, Okakusa Kasuko, explains what happens: “The ceremony is the adoration of the beautiful. All efforts are concentrated on the endeavor to attain Perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. All its beauty consists of respecting the simple things we do, because they can lead us to God.”

Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

Strolling along the promenade, I hear a young woman saying to another in a very convincing voice: “I’ve programmed my life in the following way …”
That made me wonder: does she take into account things that happen just when we are not expecting them? Has she considered that maybe God has a different plan, a far more interesting one? Has she thought seriously about the hypothesis that, by including other people in her program, she might be interfering in different ideas and projects?
I am not sure whether the sentence I overheard was born of inexperience or total delirium.

Melbourne, Australia

I step out on to the stage with the usual apprehension. A local writer, introduces me and starts asking me questions. Before I can conclude my reasoning, he interrupts me and asks another question. When I answer, he says something like “that answer wasn’t very clear.” Five minutes later, I feel a certain restlessness in the audience. I remember Confucius, and do the only thing possible:
“Do you like what I write?” I ask.
“That doesn’t matter,” he answers. “I’m doing the interviewing, not you.”
“But it does matter. You don’t let me finish a sentence. Confucius said: ‘whenever possible, be clear.’ Let’s follow that advice and make things quite clear: do you like what I write?”
“No, I don’t. I have read only two books, and I hated them.”
“OK, so now we can continue.”
The camps were now defined. The audience relaxes, the environment fills with electricity, the interview turns into a true debate, and everyone – including the writer – is satisfied with the result.

In the plane between Melbourne and Los Angeles

This extract from the on-board magazine is attributed to Loren Eisley:
“The journey is difficult, long, sometimes impossible. Even so, I know few people who have let these difficulties stop them. We enter the world without knowing for sure what happened in the past, what consequences this has brought us, and what the future may have in store for us.
“We shall try to travel as far as we can. But looking at the landscape around us, we realize that it won’t be possible to know and learn everything.
”So what remains is for us to remember all about our journey so that we can tell stories. To our children and grandchildren, we can tell the marvels that we have seen and the dangers that we have faced. They too will be born and will die, they too will tell their stories to their descendants, and still the caravan won’t have reached its destination.”

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as free e-books (PDF format) from the Smink Works Books site

Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light - Creep

Warrior of the Light
Issue n° 156 - Creep

Although the word is a bit on the strong side, the truth is that all of us have known a creep in our lives (the dictionary defines the term as “an individual without any character, dignity or spirit”). He is the kind of person who tries to stand out more when we are adolescents, when we are fighting to affirm our identities, our dreams, our place in the world. We are filled with doubts about what to do, and all of a sudden here comes the creep: always the leader, the one who thinks he is the best-looking, the most intelligent, the most able to face the challenges that lie ahead.

To remain in this position, he attacks our self-esteem: he wants us to think we are ugly, dull, without any future, and that we should imitate him and his way of leading the guys on the block (or in the building, or the condominium). In the case of boys, normally he imposes himself by brute force or by his “smart” attitudes, as if he knew more than everybody else. In the case of girls, the creep is always the one who seems to attract the looks of all the guys, get invited to all the parties, always be the most elegant.

Creeps (both male and female) look at us with a certain air of superiority and try to dictate the rules of the group. We naturally feel intimidated at such conduct, unsure of what to do, and end up letting the creep guide us for some time. Although we do not know it, we are giving the creep the power that he neither has nor deserves, and this will be the only moment in his life that his ephemeral light will manage to shine. But that is all part of our apprenticeship, since that is the way we develop our defenses in the future.
And so we grow up. Little by little each of us makes his choices, the group of adolescents splits up, and the creep disappears, although we still preserve his image of beauty, wisdom, leadership, elegance, strength and superiority.
During this important rite of passage called adolescence, all of us have our fundamental values tested – except the creep. While we suffer from feeling neglected, insecure and fragile, he sails smoothly by: after all, he is our leader! He does not have to endure all those endless difficult hours the rest of us spend on rainy afternoons and lying awake at nights.
One fine day, when we are already adults, we think about getting together with our friends from adolescence. We organize a party, usually in a restaurant – where everyone shows up with their husbands and wives. Nothing better than to sit down at a good meal, with good wine, and remember a little the years that made us all that we are today.
The creep shows up – generally married like the rest of us. We are all interested in what has become of his/her life, there is still a certain fascination and awe about an attitude so full of self-confidence. Where did that person go whom we secretly envied and admired?
The first surprise is that the creep went nowhere. Or rather, he may have taken a couple of successful steps, but soon life proved implacable towards his arrogance – the adult world is quite different from the one we live in when we are young.
But the creep still has one refuge: his adolescent gang. And since he thinks that the world has not moved forward, he wants to relive his moments of glory. When dinner starts, it seems that we have all been transported back, but soon we realize that he was just an instrument to enable us to grow. After a couple of drinks, we see the creep at bay, trying to prove a strength that no longer exists, feeling that we still believe that he is the leader of us all.
We smile, exchange kind words with everyone, pay the bill and leave with the impression that the creep has made the wrong choice. We think: “everything in that person should have worked out right, and it didn’t”.
All of us have known a creep or two in our lives. And that’s just as well.

Copyright @ 2007 by Paulo Coelho
Warrior of the Light, a www.paulocoelho.com.br publication

Selected Warrior of the Light issues are available as free e-books (PDF format) from the Smink Works Books site