"Too many people die with their music still in them. Why is it so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time has run out." – Oliver Wendell Holmes
Do you ever think about reaching the end of your life with your music still in you—unwritten, unsung, and therefore useless and unable to move even a single soul? I sure do, but for me it's not music. I write for various newspapers, magazines, and websites. That's how I pay my bills. But my music is writing a novel, or multiple novels.
I'm an avid reader of literature. I love to root for characters to achieve their goals. I hurt with them when they fall short. I rejoice with them when they succeed. But more than anything, I identify with them because they represent the same desires and struggles that I face.
One thing that always strikes me though about these characters—they seldom die with their music still in them. They take risks. They mess up. They take more risks. They deal with their character flaws. And ultimately, they either succeed or fail, but they don't die with their music still in them. The ones who fail are often changed by the journey—changed enough to still find fulfillment in the effort they gave and in their new direction.
Another thing that strikes me about characters in literature—they don't watch life happen from the sidelines (parked in front of a television, or a Play Station 2, or a computer). They live life. They aren't waiting to live it and they aren't content to watch others live it.
Of course, there's a twist of irony in even these statements because reading literature is in a sense reading about characters who are living life. For me, the characters serve as motivation to chase my own dreams, but I have to be careful to not spend so much time reading literature that I fail to actually write a little myself.
