Kierkegaard’s Ideas of Despairs in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist

Having despair is universal for human being as the results of our efforts in understanding our self which is an eternal torment within our finite and infinite, necessity and possibility. Kierkegaard called it as a sick of spirit that consciously or unconsciously attack ourselves. It is an indicator that there is a potential that is abandoned or ignored to stimulate us to move to a better self. The despair is remained in the self until it is aware and finds the cure, and comes to another despair of the cure. Santiago, the protagonist in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist also has his despair in realizing his dream of travel, he sees that there are many people in his social suffer from similar despair. Learning from their despairs, Santiago tries to cope with his own despairs to avoid the worse despair that will ruin his dream. The study results the findings that the protagonist realize his dream by choosing to get rid of the despair experienced by the people around him, and take all the risks of his own despair on realizing his dream. He is able to cope with the unconscious and conscious despairs covering despair of finitude, weakness, and defiance and make his dream possible.


I. Introduction
Despair is a kind of sickness of spirit, which is steaming from a misunderstanding of who we really are as human being. It is the condition of human as what Kierkegaard argued in The Sickness unto Death. Our limited rational to grab what reality is true for us is hard to do. We fall into anxiety in running our life that make us discomfort and uneasy because we do not know what we want and what to do to be in the world which is so absurd. No wonder some of us tend to live in routine and follow what is offered by common; or just to live based on instinctive activities; on the other hand, few are work hard to get out from their despair but fails on their weakness and gives up on trying, the worse is they commit suicide. But for Kierkegaard, despair does not have to lead us to death, if they leap to faith in God, and are saved by His love which rebuilds the hope for eternal that is the part of the infinite of human being. Due to the fact that Kierkegaard believes that man always tries to relate his finite and infinite parts. If they are able to get over the despair, they will have potentials hidden inside and live their life out. In God everything is possible and He enables us to live meaningful. So dare to choose upon the despair responsibly, with hope and faith in God, the one could emerge his higher potentials in fulfilling his free finite and infinite duty.
The conditions also reflected on The Alchemist novel written by Paulo Coelho, a prolific, best-seller Brazilian writer (Mayer, 2017). The protagonist, Santiago, a 18-year old boy who wants to realize his dream to travel has to face the reality of poverty that makes him to choose to be a shepherd as the possible job in his social. He feels happy that being a shepherd satisfies his travel dream over Andalusian with his sheep. But he does not realize that he has the same condition as he had in the seminary and becomes weary of his travel. He wants to settle down when he falls in love with a merchant girl. He is happier with her accompany rather than his sheep's and decides to meet her again to marry her and work for her father. But her father rejects him for his poverty and nomad life. He thinks that all his efforts are useless and meaningless, he thought that he is better than his father or his friends at seminary. Then, he has a dream to challenge him to find his treasure in Egypt, he hopes that if he finds his treasure he could marry his girl. He tries to find the truth of his dream to Gypsie, but she cannot help him. In his despair, he meets Melchizedek, an old man who convinces him to get the treasure. He shows the same despairs as his over the people around him who quit realizing their dreams and receive their life as fate. His wonder of finding his truth motivates him to take the challenge and finds out that the treasure turns out to be his faith that being a shepherd is his destiny. His action on despairs as stated by Raina in his article that human must act, even when he has to face with force, evil, despair and death (2017: 2; Muraleedharan, 2012), and his life management skills (Dash, 2012) leads him to be authentic and unique individual.
By applying descriptive qualitative, the study aims to reveal what the despairs are portrayed in The Alchemist through the descriptions of characters and how the despairs influence the protagonist to realize his dream. The data will be collected in forms of words, phrases and sentences informing about despairs, and the influence the protagonist to realize his dream in the plot of the narration.

II. Theoretical Background of Despair
Despair is a kind of sickness of spirit, as Kierkegaard said that, "Despair differs from what we usually call sickness, because it is a sickness of the spirit" (Moore, 2007: 133). It is not a physical illness such as a fever, or flu and other diseases. The one can seem to be healthy and fine but he feels uneasy and discomfort. It is a kind of energy that is bigger urging to be fulfilled by him. The more the one ignore it, the more suffer he is. Only he is who know that he is in despair. Kierkegaard argued that it is because the one is not aware of being spirit, and for this reason all the so called security and contentment with life are actually forms of despair. (Moore, 2007: 134). Every human being is the synthesis of spirit and body, the infinite and finite, freedom and necessity, destined for spirit (Grunthaler, 2013:1).
It is one's own existential condition to despair of one own being, nobody can escape from this condition because God created the despair, so only God who could hold the tension of the synthesis. The one could escape the condition by transcend himself to God and surrender all his life to get the remedy. Even though the despair is not released, the one gets the freedom to take it as his responsibility for God without being guilty of failing to be infinite or finite as he gives the results on God's will.
The spirit is the self which is synthesis of the so there are variant of despair as Kierkegaard described as follows: a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. The self is the conscious unity of these factors, which relates to itself, whose task is to become itself. So there are variant of despair as Kierkegaard described as follows: It is the despair condition of the one who live without God. He is not aware of His grace in his infinite side. The one count himself on the objects of pleasure that makes his life agreeable. He feels happy when he has money, respect from others, prestige. He is called a sensualist who thinks that the matters make him alive so when the matters are gone, his life ends. Another is the one who dreams of something and plan to do it, but he never realizes. He lives in ideas and count on someone else to do it such as thinkers, politicians, etc. For Kierkegaard it is the worst form of despair because it is so far removed from the truth about the way we should actually be living. He is living like an animal than true human being, therefore, it means that the possibilities of liberation remains all but impossible (Moore, 2007:135) B. Conscious Despair

Despair of Finitude
It is a form of despair which unnoticed in the world. It seems that the one does all his duties and focus his abilities on temporal goals set up by his social, "he is just what a human being ought to be. He is praised by others; honored, esteemed, and occupied with all the goals of temporal life (Moore, 2007:138). His life felt meaningful when he gets honor, praises, admiration by his achieving a successful life set up by social moral standard. He forgets his duty before God. His spirit is dry of necessity. He will ruin easily when he could not meet the expectation or when all his possession, friends, honors are gone.

Despair of Weakness
It is the despair of not wanting to be oneself. This kind of despair amounts to a passivity of the self. Its frame of reference is the pleasant and the unpleasant; its concepts are good fortune, misfortune, and fate. What is immediate is all that matters. The determining factor is what happens or does not happen to oneself (Moore, 2007:137). The despair is going on behind him but unawares.
Therefore, if everything suddenly changes, once his external circumstances change and his wishes are fulfilled, then happiness returns to him, he begins life afresh. When help comes from outside, happiness is restored to him, and he begins where he left off. Yet he neither was nor becomes a self. He is a cipher and simply carries on living merely on the level of what is immediate and of what is happening around him.
The one does not dare to take the risks of the possibilities of the failures if he wants to be a self. He is drawn with the external changes and acts passively and receives what happens to him as fate. He is easily blaming external circumstances without acting out to cope with it. He is waiting someone else to help him and restore his happiness. But he still remains in the passive stand as his fate even he could to be one self.

Despair of Defiance
This is despair of the one who will to be oneself and wants to take the risks of the possibilities might happen to him. He decides all the rules for himself, he chooses all goodness for him and obey them. "The one who lives in defiance does not truly put on a self, nor does he see his task in himself. No, by virtue of his own "infinitude" he constructs his own self by himself and for himself" (Moore, 2007:139). He is like a king without a kingdom because he is the king as well as the kingdom. He leads himself and manages all his body, mind, and spirit/infinite to be a self. The more he realizes his self, the more he feels anxiety of not becoming a self. He fails many times in despair due to the fact that others do the same thing as him. Therefore, he surrenders his self to the Self/God to be purified by his mercy to set him free from his sin.

III. Method
This article is addressed to qualitative research dealing with the study of social reality or with internal perspective. Qualitative research includes narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case studies. It is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It also consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible. These practices transform the world. They turn the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interview, conversation, photograph, recording and memos to the self. At this level, qualitative research involves an interpretive and naturalistic approach. This means that qualitative researchers study things in natural setting, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them (Creswell, 2007:35-36).
Several lists of characters of qualitative research are: 1) natural setting (field focus), a source of data for close interaction. Researchers collect data in the field where participants' experience the issue or problem under study; 2) researchers as the key instrument of data collection; 3) multiple data sources in words or images; 4) analysis of data inductively, recursively, interactively; 5) a focus on participants' perspective, their meanings, their subjective views; 6) framing of human behavior and belief within a social/historical context or through a cultural lens; 7) emergent rather than tightly prefigured design; 8) fundamentally interpretive inquiry--researcher reflects on her or his role, the role of the reader, and the role of the participants in shaping the study, holistic view of social phenomena (Creswell: 2007:38).
The study of qualitative research refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbol, and descriptions of things (Berg, 2001:3). It also goes to five features of qualitative research covering studying the meaning of people's lives, under real world, representing the views and perspectives of the people in a study, covering the contextual conditions within people live, contributing insights into existing or emerging concepts that may help to explain human social behavior and striving to use multiple sources and evidence rather than relying on a single source alone (Yin, 2011:8).

A. Unconscious Despair
It is the despair condition of the one who live without God. He is not aware of His grace in his infinite side. The one count himself on the objects of pleasure that makes his life agreeable. He feels happy when he has money, respect from others, prestige, "His parents had wanted him to become a priest, and thereby a source of pride for a simple farm family. They worked hard just to have food and water, like the sheep" (Coelho, 2002:4). For poor people, it is important for them to fulfill their basic needs, enough food and drink to satisfy their hunger is happiness. They tend to work hard and forget that they have the infinite sides to fulfill, but they do not realize it for they are busy to work and focus on their nourishment so it seems that their life is happy. Parents encourage their children to find a career which has a pride and honor in society. In Andalusia, only seminary is a place for poor people who look for a respectful position as a priest that people honor without looking on the money or possession. So, many people bury their desires and do not dare to realize the infinite potentials they have which enable them to be more than they can do. This despair is reflected by Santiago's father when his son said that he wanted to travel rather than to be a priest. He tried to convince his son that travel is an expensive thing for them as a poor family. Since his son insisted of travel he permitted him as he realized that it was his own desire but he could not do it: "And he gave the boy his blessing. The boy could see in his father's gaze a desire to be able, himself, to travel the world a desire that was still alive, despite his father's having had to bury it, over dozens of years, under the burden of struggling for water to drink, food to eat, and the same place to sleep every night of his life (Coelho, 2002:5).
His obligations to feed his family stopped him to realize his desire of travelling. He focused his life on the instinctive needs, and forgot to live his life for his fears of poverty. He did not involve God as his infinite which enabled him to do it. Therefore, he suffered the despair unconsciously.
This despair also happened to Santiago that he has a potential that enabled him to do more than shepherding work which absorb him to meet instinctive desires of his sheep. When he met the wool merchant's daughter, she noticed it as she asked him, "Well, if you know how to read, why are you just a shepherd?" Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.78, 2021 59 The boy mumbled an answer that allowed him to avoid responding to her question. He was sure the girl would never understand (Coelho, 2002: 3).
His reaction shows that he did not know it that he could do more with his reading skills. His knowledge must be able to help him to have a better job or expand his shepherding skills. He denied the facts that actually he also felt anxiety that he thought of something else, but he excused himself by blaming her of not understanding his condition that the only way to travel was by being a shepherd.
Thus, the facts prove that the unconscious despair happened to Santiago's father and Santiago himself that actually they have possible potentials to develop over their finite or instinctive ones.

B. Conscious Despair 1. Despair of Finitude
The despair happens to the one does all his duties and focus his abilities on temporal goals set up by his social that make him just what a human being ought to be. He feels meaningful life upon others' respects; honors, esteems, and occupied with all the goals of temporal life. After meeting the merchant's daughter, Santiago had the same dreams twice when he stopped and stayed a night under a sycamore tree at a ruined church, 'the child said to me, if you come here, you will find a hidden treasure.' (Coelho, 2002:7). He decided to get the treasure by asking to a Gypsie woman in Tarifa but she could not show him where Egypt was. Feeling disappointed of his effort in getting to know his dream of treasure through Gypsie's reading palm was useless, he decided to quit thinking of his treasure and return to his regular jobs. When he went to plaza to change his book, he met Melchizedek, a wise man, who knew everything about his life which surprised him a lot: "So the boy was disappointed; he decided that he would never again believe in dreams. He remembered that he had a number of things he had to take care of: he went to the market for something to eat, he traded his book for one that was thicker, and he found a bench in the plaza where he could sample the new wine he had bought" (Coelho, 2002:8).
He felt weary because uncertain results of his treasure, everything seemed to be unclear and hard for him that he had to forget the girl he loved. Melchizedek showed him the routines of people at plaza that they were just busy working at the same place and with the same people. Looking at them he thought of his regularity but in different ways that he never met the same people and place. The old man showed him a baker who suffered from the finitude despair: "The old man pointed to a baker standing in his shop window at one corner of the plaza. "When he was a child, that man wanted to travel, too. But he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he's an old man, he's going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of." (Coelho, 2002: 12).
The baker felt discomfort for the anxiety whether he was able to travel when he was old or not. He did not dare to spend a time to meet his desire for, "Parents would rather see their children marry bakers than shepherds.' (Coelho, 2002:13). So he preferred doing his duties to meet what his social's expectations to gain respect and honor. The old man showed the fact to remind him that it would happen to him when he stopped to find his treasure that he meant he put off his travel dream since he had visited all the meadows in Andalusia. So he had to find out other areas to travel further. The dream was the call to find out his eternal side: Curse the moment I met that old man, he thought. He had come to the town only to find a woman who could interpret his dream. Neither the woman nor the old men were at all impressed by the fact that he was a shepherd. If he ever decided to leave them, they would suffer. Here, I am, between my flock and my treasure, the boy thought. He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have. There was also the merchant's daughter, but she wasn't as important as his flock, because she didn't depend on him. Maybe she didn't even remember him. He was sure that it made no difference to her on which day he appeared: for her, every day was the same, and when each day is the same as the next (Coelho, 2002:15).
Santiago realized that he could have chances to get his treasure and find different experience of travelling to Egypt. But he got despair since he had to neglect his obligations to his sheep, and also his beloved girl. It is the despair between necessity and possibilities, he thought that being a shepherd as his brave choice and his good at shepherding was a pride in society. Nobody appreciated it even the Gypsic and old man even though he had done his duties very well.

Despair of Weakness
It is the despair of not wanting to be oneself. This kind of despair amounts to a passivity of the self. Its frame of reference is the pleasant and the unpleasant; its concepts are good fortune, misfortune, and fate. The despair felt by the Gypsie woman whom Santiago met to find out any information about his dream: "Only wise men are able to understand them. And since I am not wise, I have had to learn other arts, such as the reading of palms. I only interpret dreams. I don't know how to turn them into reality. That's why I have to live off what my daughters provide me with." (Coelho, 2002:8) She was conscious that she had no wisdom to show the way to get to the treasure, she chose an ability to read someone else's dream but she was not able to realize it, so she counted her life on interpreting dreams. She never tried to make it true even she lived based on other help. Her life depends on people who need her help, upon the money she charges when the dream is true. If it was not true, she never got the paid. Her weakness stopped her to gain her higher potentials, she changed her life when someone changed her condition. Her life depended on her externals since she did not want to take the risks of losing. She became a common Gypsie woman who could not read a dream, not a Gypsie woman who could not only read a dream but also realize it.
Similar despair happens to the crystal merchant, his fears of the risks to take if he acts upon the condition, he prefers keeping what become his fortune from his business. He never wants to improve the condition and receives the facts as his fate: "The crystal merchant awoke with the day, and felt the same anxiety that he felt every morning. He had been in the same place for thirty years: a shop at the top of a hilly street where few customers passed. Now it was too late to change anything the only thing he had ever learned to do was to buy and sell crystal glassware. There had been a time when many people knew of his shop: Arab merchants, French and English geologists, German soldiers who were always well-heeled. In those days it had been wonderful to be selling crystal, and he had thought how he would become rich, and have beautiful women at his side as he grew older" (Coelho, 2002: 25).
He missed a lot of fortunes that he could have if he did something. He counts on the circumstances in the past that brings him happiness. He blames easily on the conditions that makes him lack of possibilities to be rich and has a wife. In fact, he is capable of doing something upon his situation. But, "I don't much like change," he said" (Coelho, 2002:28), he cannot deal with the absurdity of the world and remains passive upon the change. His creativity was buried in his complaining about the present time and stuck himself in the past time. He could not meet the demands of the new ideas of the buyers of crystal glassware: "I'm already used to the way things are. Before you came, I was thinking about how much time I had wasted in the same place, while my friends had moved on, and either went bankrupt or did better than they had before. It made me very depressed. Now, I can see that it hasn't been too bad. The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change. I'm used to the way I am (Coelho, 2002:31).
Santiago came there, he changed a lot of his shop business. He enlarged it by putting a glass stand and sold tea in crystal glasses. He just depended on what Santiago's ideas and followed him. He did not want to take the risks so losing was frightening for him. This man missed what higher possibilities he could create for himself and surrounding. He realized his weakness but did not know how to deal with it. He received it as a fate even though he could change it as he said, "Maktub" said the old crystal merchant (Coelho, 2002).
The facts prove that the despair of weakness happen to Gypsie and the crystal merchant. They are conscious that they have capabilities to be a higher self, but they do not know how to do it and fear of the failures and suffers so they decide to stay at the comfort zone.

Despair of Defiance
Unlike the second despair that the one is afraid of taking the failures and risks, this is despair of the one who will be oneself and wants to take the risks of the possibilities might happen to him. He decides all the rules for himself, he chooses all goodness for him and obeys them.
Santiago felt the despair of defiance of realizing his dream of travel. He knows exactly what he wants and how to make it possible. Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.78, 2021 "His purpose in life was to Travel… I'd like to see the castles in the towns where they live… I'd like to see their land, and see how they live," said his son. "The people who come here have a lot of money to spend, so they can afford to travel," his father said. "Amongst us, the only ones who travel are the shepherds." "Well, then I'll be a shepherd!" (Coelho, 2002: 4-5).
He took all the chances even though he never knows what it would turn out. So he left all his family: parents, friends, relatives including his comfort, and to live in open spaces, alone with his sheep only. On the other side he got what he dreamed, travelled as a shepherd gave him a lot of pleasure and explorations of new things in Andalusia, he could see by himself all places and girls. Until one day, he feels that it is not fun any longer since he knew all the meadows and he is bored with the sheep: "The only things that concerned the sheep were food and water. As long as the boy knew how to find the best pastures in Andalusia, they would be his friends. Yes, their days were all the same, with the seemingly endless hours between sunrise and dusk" (Coelho, 2002:3) He thought that travel as a shepherd supposed to give him eternal pleasure but the reality he traps at the same condition of ordinary. He wonders if there is something more beyond it.
Other despair is that when he found more pleasure at talking to the merchant's daughter. Telling his stories he read in books to her brings other happiness which makes him to think of settle down and marry her. But he faces a reality that a shepherd is not desirable husband for the poverty and nomad life: "He was excited, and at the same time uneasy: maybe the girl had already forgotten him. Lots of shepherds passed through, selling their wool. "It doesn't matter," he said to his sheep. "I know other girls in other places." But in his heart he knew that it did matter" (Coelho, 2002:3).
He realized that his social did not respect a poor shepherd, and there were shepherds who had more sheep than he had who could afford the marriage life. He hoped he could find another girl who wanted him as he was, he convinced himself if he did have the possibilities. Therefore, he urged to find his treasure that he dreamed twice. He sacrificed his sheep to travel to Egypt.
The despair led him to another despair of finding his treasure. When he decided to pursue his treasure to Egypt, he finds himself robbed and loses his money. He worries and desperate of how he could continue his travel without money: "He was so ashamed that he wanted to cry. He had never even wept in front of his own sheep. But the marketplace was empty, and he was far from home, so he wept. He wept because God was unfair, and because this was the way God repaid those who believed in their dreams" (Coelho, 2002:22).
He wept for regretting his decision, the facts he found was not what he expected. What he believes that God will accompany him as the old man said tears his faith, He is supposed to help him and protect him from bad situations, and makes the easy roads to take. It was unexpected risks that he had to take in his life journey that he finally learnt later from the camel driver of a caravan that carried him to pyramid in Egypt. The driver told his despair that his losing of property and family did not make him give up but he took the risks of the changing of the world by living in the present not in the past: "We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand" (Coelho, 2002:41).
He counted of the contentment of life and the future was ruined by natural disaster which could not be predicted and blamed. All materials things were not able to save life, it was only the means of supporting life but not the life itself. So he made himself take the anxiety to his faith that God will always help him.
The despair of defiance is proved when he has to face his death as the consequence of his vision of troops that would attack Al-Fayoum. He took his responsibility as the member of the society even though he was a stranger: "Walking along in the silence, he had no regrets. If he died tomorrow, it would be because God was not willing to change the future. He would at least have died after having crossed the strait, after having worked in a crystal shop, and after having known the silence of the desert and Fatima's eyes. He had lived every one of his days intensely since he had left home so long ago. If he died tomorrow, he would already have seen more than other shepherds, and he was proud of that" (Coelho, 2002:60).
He never knew that his good deed could trouble him. He only told what he had seen that would endanger for all the people including Fatima his beloved. It seemed that not all good deed turned out to be good since other people think differently. He worried that he would die before getting his treasure, and failed to marry Fatima. He tried to please himself by remembering what he achieved as a simple shepherd and the risks he had taken. Fortunately, his vision was right and rewarded him fifty golden coins and a position of Oasis counselor.
Loving Fatima gives another despair that he thinks that his money and position as Oasis counselor will make her happy, so he can settle down and live happy with her. In fact, she desires to have a traveler husband that she could not do for she is a desert woman who is happier to have her husband back from finding treasure: "That's why I want you to continue toward your goal. If you have to wait until the war is over, then wait. But if you have to go before then, go on in pursuit of your dream. The dunes are changed by the wind, but the desert never changes. That's the way it will be with our love for each other" (Coelho, 2002: 53).
As a desert woman, she had to fulfill her destiny that she never held her man to travel for his dream. True love did not keep the beloved one to pursuit her dream. Once more, Santiago had to leave everything he had and learnt that there was something more than love of money and position. So he left Oasis and Fatima to fulfill their dreams. His despair coming to him when he lost all he had, once more he was robbed and his life became the guarantee if he could not change himself into the wind: "You gave them everything I had!" the boy said. "Everything I've saved in my entire life!" He had no idea how he was going to transform himself into the wind. He wasn't an alchemist! "I still have no idea how to turn myself into the wind," the boy repeated….I want to return to her, and I need your help so that I can turn myself into the wind." (Coelho, 2002:80-81).
He thought that why the more he does to fulfilling his life purpose, the more suffers and worse conditions. Even to make Fatima happy, he faces his own death and lost. Changing into wind is something beyond his capability, but if he cannot do it he fails to return to Fatima.
The final despair of defiance he had is when he struggled to find his treasure near pyramid. He had to struggle against his ego and surrender to the will of ego.
"They made the boy continue digging, but he found nothing. As the sun rose, the men began to beat the boy. He was bruised and clothing was torn to shreds, and he felt that death was near. The man who appeared to be the leader of the group spoke to one of the others: "Leave him. He doesn't have anything else. He must have stolen this gold." The boy fell to the sand, nearly unconscious… (Coelho, 2002: 92).
Being robbed, tortured and accused of being bad deed, he feels hopeless and death will come to him. His desperation of being unable to fulfill Fatima's dream, finish his journey and find his treasure. All the sacrifice and risks he took led him to nothingness and useless, he felt just as bad as the other dreamers, he needed to be saved. He surrendered himself to God that he had to end his journey of this way, at least he proved himself to Him that he fulfilled his eternal duties: "But before they left, he came back to the boy and said, "You're not going to die. You'll live, and you'll learn that a man shouldn't be so stupid… if I dug at the roots of the sycamore, I would find a hidden treasure. But I'm not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of a recurrent dream." The boy stood up shakily, and looked once more at the Pyramids. They seemed to laugh at him, and he laughed back, his heart bursting with joy. Because now he knew where his treasure was" (Coelho, 2002: 92).
His faith saved him from nothingness when he believes of what the leader said to him. His information confirmed the truth of his treasure that he could not get from Gypsie woman and the old man. So he himself had to find the truth and made the treasure truly his own treasure not others'. His suffers changed into joy and excitement that his hope never ended, he convinced that travel was his destiny, therefore, God saved the treasure in the ruined church for he had to travel.

V. Conclusion
From the data findings, the most despairs are the despair of defiance. The protagonist wants to will to be self therefore, he experiences his despair of defiance. By learning from his unconscious despair and conscious despair that are projected on the despairs of the people around him, Santiago is able to overcome his despair into worse condition that ruin his dream realization. When he is aware of his unconscious despair he takes the challenge of make it conscious that he has potentials inside to improve his life and realize his dream to have more money and marry a girl. His first learning is from baker, Gypsie woman who cannot realize their dream due to their despairs of weakness and finitude, he makes decision to pursue his treasure because he is someone who always realizes his dream. The despair he takes teaches him that money and a girl are not the reasons to hold to make dream come true. Taking the risks of the despair explore his potentials of being merchant. From the driver, he learns how to control his life over the absurd by living in the present and forget the past which contrasts from the crystal merchant's view about the changing world. His decision continues his journey to Egypt emerges his potential of his vision so he can save people of Al Fayoum and makes him a counselor and rewards him a lot of money. From Fatima's despair of longing a traveler husband teaches him how to understand love by learning how to change himself into wind leading him to face to face with the Love himself as the soul of the world. All the lessons of despairs are practiced to his final despair of conquering his ego. Santiago gets his gift of his treasure location.
Everybody will always confront with his despair including Santiago in The Alchemist. It will depend on how we react upon it whether we ignore it or act upon it by realizing what the anxiety is. As Santiago dares to take the risks of every action he decides to make his better condition even his potentials exploration to cope with problems of fulfilling his duties to his self, social, and God. After all, Kierkegaard suggests that to be free from despair the one must understand his nature of self and finds his ultimate core in a higher power-namely God.