Alchemy is the pursuit of the philosopher’s stone. A substance capable of turning plain metals into gold, and also rumored to extend life past any normal boundaries. Change is alchemical in nature. To change is for us to attempt to turn our plain selves, our standard, into gold. To change is to playfully pursue the concept of immortality. It is our pursuit of the philosopher’s stone. 

As a science, alchemy is unsuccessful. Any surviving documentation fails to provide a reliable, replicable, even real formula for the stone. In all likelihood, given its rumored violation of natural laws, the substance cannot exist. Desired difference is the same. To want to be something different while retaining a sense of self is a violation of logic; of observable natural law. However, change is also alchemical in nature in that it’s not a results based system. There were no successful alchemists, yet Flamel is still known. You don’t need to get where you thought you were going in order to change; in order to be an alchemist, in order to change, all one has to do is try. 

 Change, and alchemy, are processes with results that shift on a case to case basis. The same materials, actions, mixed in the same beakers, contexts, may produce different results, with the only thing to blame the stars far above head. Yes, even in the occurrence of similarity in desire, one’s path will feature twists and turns that another’s does not, and vice versa, which, because of change simply being result in effort, obviously ends at different results. Same for some is change for others. One person wants to control their chaotic energy, another person wants to let loose. Logically, separate paths are required to arrive at separate results, but in practice, its arbitrary whether people end up very similar, or very different. Alchemy, change, is a customizable course of action without exclusivity or guarantee. It is indeterminacy. Anyone can change themselves any way at any time, it also just happens to be at the risk of any result. 

Which, ironically, implies a shared starting point, a set of standards, science-like in this otherwise mystic activity. Presupposing self-honestly, it’s two simple, measurable things: willingness and effort. Willingness to overcome the comfort of where one has been, willingness to try for something better, willingness to see into a future that may not be and to still pursue it recklessly. Effort to actually get up, effort to move forward, effort to keep momentum through every twist and turn that presents itself in the naturally chaotic unwinding of progress. 

Change is alchemical in nature in that the truly desired result, the philosopher’s stone, will always elude us in unexpected ways. Such is the fate of self-conception. of being who we were, are, and are going to be, simultaneously.  However, change also teaches the same lesson as alchemy: to derive value from journey rather than the undesired destination. That, this whole time, despite a dearth of desires met, you’ve carried the desired result with you. That the philosopher’s stone, change, isn’t so special, or inaccessible; it’s accidental, every pebble that ends up in our shoes.