Like the Flowing River: Thoughts and Reflections. Пауло Коэльо

back into the centre of the fire.

      ‘Good night,’ said the priest, getting up to leave.

      ‘Good night, and thank you very much,’ replied Juan. ‘However brightly a piece of coal may be burning, it will soon burn out if you remove it from the flames. However intelligent a man may be, he will soon lose his warmth and his flame if he distances himself from his fellow man. I’ll see you at church next Sunday.’

       Manuel Is an Important and Necessary Man

      Manuel needs to be busy. If he is not, he thinks that his life has no meaning, that he’s wasting his time, that society no longer needs him, that no one loves or wants him.

      So, as soon as he wakes up, he has a series of tasks to perform: to watch the news on television (something might have happened in the night); to read the newspaper (something might have happened during the day yesterday); to tell his wife not to let the children be late for school; to take the car or catch a taxi or a bus or the metro, all the time thinking hard, staring into space, looking at his watch or, if possible, making a few calls on his mobile phone, and ensuring that everyone can see what an important man he is, useful to the world.

      Manuel arrives at work and sits down to deal with the paperwork that awaits him. If he’s an employee, he does his best to make sure that his boss has seen that he’s arrived on time. If he’s a boss, he sets everyone to work immediately. If there are no important tasks to be done, Manuel will invent them, create them, come up with a new plan, develop new lines of action.

      Manuel goes to lunch, but never alone. If he is a boss, he sits down with his friends and discusses new strategies, speaks ill of his competitors, always has a card up his sleeve, complains (with some pride) of overwork. If Manuel is an employee, he, too, sits down with his friends, complains about his boss, complains about the amount of overtime he’s doing, states with some anxiety (and with some pride) that various things in the company depend entirely on him.

      Manuel – boss or employee – works all afternoon. From time to time, he looks at his watch. It’s nearly time to go home, but he still has to sort out a detail here, sign a document there. He’s an honest man and wants to justify his salary, other people’s expectations, the dreams of his parents, who struggled so hard to give him a good education.

      Finally, he goes home. He has a bath, puts on some more comfortable clothes, and has supper with his family. He asks after his children’s homework and what his wife has been doing. Sometimes, he talks about his work, although only to serve as an example, because he tries not to bring his work problems home with him. They finish supper, and his children – who have no time for examples, homework, or other such things – immediately leave the table and go and sit down in front of the computer. Manuel, in turn, goes and sits down in front of that piece of apparatus from his childhood called the television. He again watches the news (something might have happened during the afternoon).

      He always goes to bed with some technical book on his bedside table – whether he’s a boss or an employee, he knows that competition is intense, and that anyone who fails to keep up to date runs the risk of losing his job and facing that worst of all curses: having nothing to do.

      He talks a little to his wife; he is, after all, a nice, hard-working, loving man who takes care of his family, and is prepared to defend it whatever the circumstances. He falls asleep at once, and he sleeps knowing that he will be very busy tomorrow, and that he needs to rebuild his energies.

      That night, Manuel has a dream. An angel asks him: ‘Why are you doing this?’ He replies that it’s because he’s a responsible man.

      The angel goes on: ‘Would you be capable of taking at least fifteen minutes of your day to stop and look at the world, and at yourself, and simply do nothing?’ Manuel says that he would love to do that, but he doesn’t have time. ‘You’re lying to me,’ says the angel. ‘Everyone has time to do that. It’s just that they don’t have the courage. Work is a blessing when it helps us to think about what we’re doing; but it becomes a curse when its sole use is to stop us thinking about the meaning of our life.’

      Manuel wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Courage? How can a man who sacrifices himself for his family not have the courage to stop for fifteen minutes a day?

      It’s best to go back to sleep. It was just a dream; these questions will get him nowhere; and tomorrow he’s going to be very, very busy.

       Manuel Is a Free Man

      Manuel works for thirty years without stopping. He brings up his children, sets a good example, and devotes all his time to work, never asking: ‘Does what I’m doing have any meaning?’ His one thought is that the busier he is, the more important he will be in the eyes of the world.

      His children grow up and leave home. He gets promotion at work. One day, he receives a watch or a pen, as a reward for all those years of devotion. His friends shed a few tears, and the longed-for moment arrives: he’s retired, free to do whatever he wants!

      During the first few months, he occasionally visits the office where he worked, talks to his old friends, and surrenders to the pleasure of doing something he always dreamed of: getting up late. He goes for a walk along the beach or through town; he has his house in the country, earned by the sweat of his brow; he discovers gardening, and gradually penetrates the mysteries of plants and flowers. Manuel has time, all the time in the world. He travels, using some of the money he has managed to save. He visits museums and learns in two hours about ideas that took painters and sculptors from different eras centuries to develop; but he at least has the feeling that he is broadening his cultural knowledge. He takes hundreds and thousands of photos and sends them to his friends – after all, they need to know how happy he is.

      More months pass. Manuel learns that the garden does not follow exactly the same rules as man – what he planted will take time to grow, and there is no point in constantly checking to see if there are buds on the rose bush yet. In a moment of genuine reflection, he discovers that all he saw on his journeys was the landscape outside the tourist bus, and monuments which are now preserved in various 6 × 9 photos. But the truth is, he did not feel any real excitement – he was more concerned with telling his friends about it than with actually experiencing the magic of being in a foreign country.

      He continues to watch the television news and reads more newspapers (because he has more time), considering himself to be a very well-informed person, able to talk about things which, before, he had no time to study.

      He looks for someone with whom to share his opinions, but they are all immersed in the river of life, working, doing something, envying Manuel his freedom and, at the same time, content to be useful to society, and to be ‘occupied’ with something important.

      Manuel seeks comfort in his children. They always treat him with great affection – he has been an excellent father, an exemplar of honesty and dedication – but they, too, have other concerns, although they consider it their duty to be there for Sunday lunch.