By Paulo Coelho
When I was young, my parents sent me to a mental institution three times ( 1966, 1967, 1968). The reasons in my medical files are banal. It was said that I was isolated, hostile and miserable at school. I was not crazy but I was rather just a 17-year-old who really wanted to become a writer. Because no one understood this, I was locked up for months and fed with tranquilizers. The therapy merely consisted of giving me electroshocks. They were intended to clear the uppermost layer of my memory in order to bring peace to my head. I promised to myself that one day I would write about this experience, so young people will understand that we have to fight for our own dreams from a very early stage of our lives.
When I realeased “Veronika decides to die”, a book that was a metaphor of my experience in a lunatic asylum, the press started asked me if I forgave my parents. In fact, I did not need to forgive them, because I never blamed them for what happened. In their own point-of-view, they were trying to help me to get the discipline necessary to accomplish my deeds as an adult, and to forget the “dreams of a teenager” .
I am glad that not only I kept my dreams, but this experience gave more strength to fight for what is important to me. I dared to be different. I told to myself: “you are unique, and you have to accept you as you are, instead of trying to repeat other people’s destinies or patterns. Insanity is to behave like someone that you are not. Normality is the capacity to express your feelings. From the moment that you don’t fear to share your heart, you are a free person. ”
Khalil Gibran has an excellent text about parents and children:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
So, as one week ago I wanted to hear ( and share) your thoughts on the struggle between love and dream, I encourage you to post your comments here. And if some of your read “Veronika decides to die”, you are also welcome to comment on the book.
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I really was moved by Veronica Decides to Die. It was personally very difficult and at the same time cathartic for me to read. I was also in an institution related deeply with Veronica.
On another note you above blog and the quote writing from Gibran, is extremely important. My mother had an extremely hard time accepting my hospilization. My sisters admitted me for my safety. It was the greatest simple act that a person(s) has ever done for me, yet my mother to this day faults herself. My life and my journeys are not hers. She does not understand that a parent can bring a child into the world and give them all they need. Yet they are still their own person, with indepedent minds, thoughts, joys, pain. I know I can never understand my mother’s position, as she can’t mine. However I have blamed myself for her pain and have felt years of guilt. Thank you, Paulo, for posting this blog. It has helped my soul find peace.