There’s nothing as disappointing as what comes after reading a good book.

I am not talking about just a good book, because trust me, I know that every Writer sets out to write a good book. Do you know why every writer’s book is good? It’s because of what goes into it.

I am not saying the hours, but the process that comes with writing the book. A Writer bares a part of himself/herself every time they take to writing. This is why every book is a good book. Forget the sales, reviews, or rankings on best seller lists- trust the process.

This is why, I say that nothing is as disappointing as what comes after reading a good book and then going online to find out about the writer. I read books, and then look up the writers later on.

So, having read The Chosen by Chaim Potok , I decided to look him up and stopped at “Chaim Potok, was…” I do suffer from grammatical errors but I know the “past tense” when I see it, and it’s always sad when I look up a writer and find that they are dead.

And it hurts because :

1. It’s hard being  a fan of a dead person. I know I am a fan of Chinua Achebe’s works, but even so there is always the desire to write and let him know that ‘hey, thank you for writing that book.’
2. They are gone, but their voice, style and written works live on- and you cannot help but ask, “what about me?”

But, I learned something from Reuven’s father, one of the characters in Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen,” and he tells his son:

I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing, but the man who lives that span, he is something.

…A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.

I have thought about this for two weeks now. I finished reading the book last month, but today as I was making my way home from work, I opened my notebook and there they were, looking up at me, reminding me that my life is mine to leave, and whatever happens after, should not worry me so much so that I forget to live now.