The Secret of Loyalty
I dedicate my first article in this blog to my best firned Faisal Asad.
It was back in the early days of 2011 in Jeddah. It was night time around 7:30 pm. I was heading out to a coffee shop to meet a friend. I entered the coffee shop, as usual I started looking around for an empty seat. The only empty place was right in the center, so I walked quietly passing by a couple of groups gathering around their tables. I remember it was Faurooz song filling the air in that place. The first thing that I was taken by were two young individuals sitting next to me speaking wonderful English. Then I recognised the amazing thing that was actually placed on their table, the book which was placed still in front of me. It was the “Divine Comedy” the masterpiece of the Italian Poet Dante Alighieri. I remember reading part of this book when I was in London in 2009, I felt something new; I felt I know the book and I knew these two individuals. This is what I call the beauty of books, which guides you to people, places and feelings that you do not ever realise.
The beauty of this book guided me to meet one of my best friends I have ever had. It is also what I call a relationship between the reader and the book. This relationship makes you feel the words of the writer deeper than anybody else. It was a strange feeling that made me stare at the book more than 5 minutes. My passion for books and particularly, these kind of books wormed me up. It also made me stand up and start walking confidently to greet these young individuals and ask them if it was possible to borrow the book for a few minutes, and as I had expected they gently agreed and gave me the book. I glanced through it quickly and went back to them and had a short discussion with them. The result was that I had become friends with one of them, whom I regard now as one the closest people to me in the world. The lesson that I have learned from this incident was that my passion towards books has given me a lifetime friend.
I believe having a friend like Faisal will not come by luck. In fact, it has something to do with the laws of attraction, it is something you will experience once you concentrate, make every effort and commitment to these things that you love the most in the world. I believe the passion I have towards books guided me to meet him. Now, I will come to the conclusion that when we follow our passion we will get more than we expected and that is the reward of loyalty.
