Aleph : a review

         Novel Paulo Coelho yang kedua bertajuk Aleph. Berbeda dengan novel The Alchemist yang saya baca sebelumnya, Aleph memiliki kandungan makna yang lebih filosofis, dengan bahasa yang lumayan berat, membuat saya mengernyitkan dahi ketika membacanya. Aleph menceritakan tentang pergulatan batin seorang Paulo Coelho dalam mencari makna hidup. Perjalanan panjang yang dilakukannya sebagai wujud kontemplasi, mencari pengalaman baru, dan perasaan baru selalu dilakukan di tiap novelnya. Aleph, perjalanan dari Moscow menuju ke Vladivostok sejauh 9,288 Km menggunakan Trans-Siberian Railway. Sebelum ia memutuskan melakukan perjalanan, ia kerapkali berkonsultasi dengan psikolog hatinya, J.
        “In magic-and in life- there’s only the present moment, the now. You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. “Time” doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers awaits us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of”
        “Right here and now, you are beginning to wonder : is there really something wrong? Yes, there’s. But at this precise moment, you also realize that you can change your future by bringing the past into the present. Past and future exist only in our memory. It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future”
       “Wherever you are committed to going, find out what you have left unfinished, and complete the task. God will guide you, because everything you ever experienced or will experience is in the here and now. The world isbeing created and destroyed in this very moment. Whoever you met will reappear, whoever you lost will return. Don’t betray the grace that was bestowed on you. Understand what is going on inside you and you’ll understand what’s going on inside everyone else”
         Dalam perjalanannya, ia bertemu banyak hal yang baru. Salah satu yang mencuri perhatiannya sejak awal adalah seorang gadis, 21 tahun bernama Hilal. Hilal adalah seorang violinist yang memiliki masa lalu kelam, menjadi objek sexual-abuse oleh ayahnya sendiri. Suara hatinya makin nyaring mengumandangkan banyak sekali asumsi. “That’s what marks out the warrior : the knowledge that willpower and courage are not the same thing. Courage can attract fear and adulation, but willpower requires patience and commitment. Men and women with immense willpower are generally solitary types and give off a kind of coolness”. Hingga ketika ia tak sengaja membaca sebuah artikel mengenai Chinese bamboo, ia pun tertegun. “Chinese bamboo : it apparently spends 5 years as a little shoot, using the time to develop its root system. And then, from one moment to the next, it puts on a spurt and grows up to 25 meters high. That’s what I wanted.  If I believe I will win, then victory will believe in me. No life is complete without a touch of madness, or what I need to do is to re-conquer my kingdom. If I can understand what’s going on in the world, I can understand what’s going on inside myself”.
          Ia adalah penulis dengan karya membumi yang dinikmati oleh hampir jutaan pembaca. Perjalanan yang ia lakukan tak hanya untuk mendapatkan kembali kerajaan kehidupannya, namun juga untuk bertemu dengan para pembacanya. “No one can learn to love by following a manual, and no one can learn to write by following a course. I’m not telling you to seek out other writers but to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm.
         Salah satu kata mutiara yang membuat saya bergidik adalah : “Writing is, above all, about discovering myself. If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this : don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely” It’s all true. I am about to implement what I am dreamed of. And this quote arouse my mood to the sky.
          Interaksi intens, kedekatan dengan sosok Hilal, membawanya masuk ke dalam memori lama. Energi yang entah datang dari mana, bertemu dan menimbulkan sebuah gejolak dalam diri. Sepertinya, mereka ditakdirkan untuk saling mengisi, mengisyaratkan pertanda, dan berbagi firasat. ItulaH Aleph. “The small aleph always appears by chance. You’re walking down a street or you sit down somewhere and suddenly the whole universe is there. The first thing you feel is a terrible desire to cry, not out of sadness or happiness but out of pure excitement. You know that you are understanding something that you can’t even explain to yourself. The great aleph occurs when 2 or more people with a very strong affinity happen to find themselves in the small aleph. Their 2 different energies complete each other and provoke a chain reaction. Their 2 energies are the positive and negative poles you get in any battery; the power makes the bulb light up. They’re transformed into the same light. Planets that attract each other and end up colliding. Lovers who meet after a long, long time. The second aleph also happens by chance when two people whom destiny has chosen for a specific mission in the right place. The right place means either 2 people can spend their whole life living and working together or they can meet only once and say good bye forever simply because they didn’t pass through the physical point that triggers an outpouring of the thing that brought them together in this world. So they part without ever quite understanding why it was they met. However, if God so wishes, those who once knew love will find each other again”. Aleph terjadi pada siapapun juga, tak peduli ruang dan waktu. Saat dua insan bertemu, kedua energi tersebut bereaksi membentuk sebuah konklusi, apakah dapat dilanjutkan ataukah hanya lewat begitu saja. Bila dua hati mempercayai konklusi timbullah efek tarik menarik sehingga mau tak mau, dua hati berpadu satu. Inilah yang terjadi saat tokoh utama bertemu Hilal. The small Aleph, called love at the first sight happened and the great Aleph, also come irresistible.
         Setelah Aleph terungkap, sang tokoh utama mempertanyakan mengenai makna hidup dalam perjalanannya. Namun, semua berakhir pada satu titik dimana dalam sebuah perjalanan, pastilah ada pengalaman. Inilah yang menjadi ajang pendewasaan kita menghadapi berbagai masalah, baik kecil maupun besar. Tak peduli sedemikian terkenal dan sukses dirimu, saat kau memutuskan untuk melakukan perjalanan, jiwa sahaja akan muncul begitu saja dan memberitahu siapa sesungguhnya dirimu. Let God use your hands. You will be happy, even if right now you feel only despair.  “It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far more than you imagined. You live in this vast body called the Universe which contains all the solutions and all the problems. Visit your soul, don’t visit your past. The universe goes through many mutation and carries the past with it. We call each of those mutations a “life”, but just as the cells in your body change and yet you remain the same, so time doesn’t pass, it merely changes. Life is a train with many carriages. Sometimes we’re in one, sometimes we’re in another, and sometimes we cross between them. When we dream or allow ourselves to be swept away by the extraordinary”.
          Afterwards, Aleph adalah novel yang sarat muatan filosofis yang kental, penuh warna dalam tiap bab-nya, dan alur cerita yang menawan. Dalam perjalanan, ada saja kejadian yang dapat diambil hikmah, disandingkan dengan makna kebenaran pencarian manusia dalam dimensi hidup. Walaupun demikian, ada beberapa bagian yang membuat saya agak bingung. Tak seperti The Alchemist yang relatif ringan, dalam Aleph, Paulo Coelho memasukkan penjelasan mengenai ritual sekte agama yang sayangnya saya tidak tahu sama sekali sehingga membuat distorsi yang tajam terhadap pemahaman saya. Perlu dua hingga tiga kali, apalagi novel yang saya baca berbahasa inggris, untuk sekedar tahu arti dari diksi sekte yang lumayan njelimet. Ya, anggap saja, seperti menonton film thriller Hollywood dimana sekte selalu dijadikan suatu senjata atau penyimpangan. But, after all, Aleph membawa warna tersendiri dalam koleksi novel saya. Tak sabar rasanya untuk membaca karya kaliber Paulo Coelho berikutnya. Chiayo!
          I present this thought for the one who transformed to be an Aleph of my realm.
          Signs are an extremely personal language that we develop throughout our lives, by trial and error, until we begin to understand that God is guiding
           …Follow the signs! until we meet again for days..