The Alchemist discussion

The AlchemistThe Alchemist vs On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

On Earth We're Briefly GorgeousWhat does it mean to find your purpose — and at what cost?

One I picked up for the second time, wanting something light to carry on a weekend trip. The other I had been putting off — not because I wasn’t interested, but because I knew it would hurt.

And it did.
But they both did, in completely different ways.

The Alchemist: The Dream That Waited for You

There’s a reason Paulo Coelho’s fable keeps getting passed from hand to hand.
Reading The Alchemist feels like sitting beside a fire in the desert, hearing a story so old it must be true. It’s not complicated. It’s not even particularly subtle. But it’s full of the kind of clarity we rarely give ourselves permission to hear.

You are meant for something. You must follow the signs. The world wants you to find your treasure.

It’s a gentle, spiritual map toward purpose — simple, but not shallow. For those who feel lost, it can feel like the first star in a dark sky. I found myself underlining lines that I already knew, but needed to see again.

But once I turned the last page, I kept thinking about all the people who never get to chase their treasure. All the people who never get to dream that big.

And that’s when I finally opened Ocean Vuong’s book.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: The Truth You Carry in Your Bones

Ocean Vuong doesn’t give you a map. He gives you the inside of his chest.
Every sentence in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is deliberate, trembling, and unflinchingly tender. This is not a book you race through — you feel your way through it, slowly, like bruises under skin.

It’s about language, war, family, queerness, immigration, violence, love — but above all, it’s about survival. Not in a heroic sense. In the way a flower survives in the crack of a sidewalk.

This is not a book that tells you to dream. It tells you what it costs to dream when the world has already written your ending in a language you don’t speak.

And yet, in all its pain, there is so much beauty. A quiet, defiant beauty that doesn’t reach for your hand — it lets you bleed beside it.

Final Thought: Two Kinds of Purpose

I used to think purpose was a shining thing waiting to be found, like Santiago’s treasure at the foot of the pyramids.

But The Alchemist taught me that the world conspires with those who listen.
Vuong’s novel reminded me that sometimes, the world doesn’t listen back — and that surviving anyway is its own kind of purpose.

The Alchemist inspired me.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous humbled me.

One lit a candle. The other showed me the dark it was fighting.