With or without our knowledge, we are all Alchemists.Â
Eric Micha’el LeventhalÂ
This morning I woke up thinking about Alchemy.Â
Alchemy is one of those things I think about instead of getting up and dealing with living. Alchemy seems far more important. Today I was thinking about why it died out, where did all the Alchemists go? Alchemy was a serious pursuit - not for the fickle, not for quitters, surely it was a passion, a preoccupation, an obsession? Alchemy seems to me to have been a lifes calling. Coded, clandestine and consuming. Alchemy was not for the ignorant, yet they endeavored to keep the uninitiated clouded with the use of symbolism and secrecy.
So why would an Alchemist just stop? Why if you have devoted your life would you part way through give in? If you’re looking for something so fervently then when do you call it a day? You don’t. Unless you find it.
It’s always in the last place you look.
Every annoying person ever.
I’ve always hated that expression and have so far had enough composure never to say “OBVZ, when I find it I’m not going to keep looking, am I?”.
That seems like a tangent but it’s not. You only stop looking when you have found what it is you were looking for. So what if Alchemist Prime finally turned lead into gold? How would you handle that? Surely you would know that the rest of the Alchemy crew would be hot on your heels, you would be over run with people creating gold. Everywhere gold. Everyone rich. Everyone rich beyond even the wildest of dreams. Only not really… Because being so clever as to turn lead into gold you must also be the type of person to catch the point of gold only being so precious because it was rare as rocking horse shit poo. There is loads of lead. There is less gold. Gold is worth more than lead - and its shiny so that helps, and less poisonous… (that is a tangent). So you can’t make lead as precious as gold, you can only make an abundance of gold as worthless as lead.
You spend your whole life looking for lead to gold enlightenment and when you find it you discover that its all bullshit. You are not a winner. All you have done is rubbish the very thing you fought so hard for. Used your one life searching for. You’d probably quit. You’d foresee gold value plummeting. You’re finished.Â
Unless maybe you are good at keeping secrets. And you know everyone else searching for this is also very good at keeping secrets. And you’re adept at cloak and dagger operations and already fluent in arcane and frankly cool looking symbolism. Maybe you’re a bit like an Alchemist, a bit like a gang of Alchemists…
So this morning I reasoned that Alchemist Prime cracked it. He told all his peers on the proviso that never shall the secret be uncovered, probably on the pain of death or disembowelment or something equally befitting such lore. The gold stays precious and Alchemy seemingly dies out…
This probably isn’t a new idea, but this morning it was new to me, and when I got out of bed I was happier knowing that I now live in the world where Alchemy won.
This hasn’t been beautifully written, its not poetry. It’s just my insides coming out.
Picture Credit:Â Flammarion engraving
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