Upon my recent arrival in Switzerland, I have picked up a book by Paulo Coelho, who has been one of my greatest inspiration through story telling, is the author of The Alchemist.

The title of this book is called Eleven Minutes. For those who have not read it, it is a story of a young Brazilian girl who was convinced since young that she will never find true love. Then a chance to Geneva, she discovered fortune and fame. She has risk of pursuing the path of darkness through sexual pleasure and risking everything to find her “inner light” and the possibility of sacred sex, of true love. I have to say I am quite emerged in the story, not that I am only interested in what will happen (of course I do), somehow Paulo Coelho is able to draw the readers in with their own ability to relate to the story, but with dignity and honesty, although this is the first book I have read from him that appealed to be quite shocking, dark and difficult.

Since this book speaks about the quest of finding true love, it reminds a section of my Masters thesis, where I wrote about love being essential ingredients of life. We are controlled by love, motivated and pull by it. Yet in my research, the confrontation of the true meaning of “love” is vast. I was bombarded with different philosophers’ perspectives, theories, as well as my own research. It seems like there will be no definite answer and it is forever changing. Even now I question, does love should simply appear simply because we are alive? Without ulterior motives? Or do we long for the opposite and the connectedness that we seek? Do we “associate love more with the person’s absence than with their presence?” (Coelho, 2004, p. 7)… in which I found profoundly interesting. Have we forgotten how to love? At which point do we re-learn how to love? Is love to be found in someone else? Or we awaken it?

I don’t think even finishing this novel will provide me a satisfactory answer. What I do know a little about love from my research as well as this book is that there is something transformative about love. An energy that free us from forms of enslavements such as labels, attachments (such as what we identify ourselves with how much wealth, status or career) and expectation. Like we simply love for the sake of it, without expecting anything in return. As Paulo Coelho quoted, “The person who gives him or her wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.” (p. 90). Is it possible to sustain this kind of love? Is it a revolutionary? I think absolutely, and we have to fight for it. It is necessary. The question is how to we sustain it…

So… let there be some thinking and chewing on these thoughts and words. I shall be having a cup of tea and this book by 8pm due to jetlag…

Cheers.