One of the best and simplest things we can cultivate is friendship. I'm not talking about the user and losers who use you and lose you - I'm talking about the ones who celebrate with you and pick you up when you fall down.
These blogs, like a lot of things online are about friendship. We enter into each other's lives in a way heretofore unknown in our world and have a choice as to whether or not we can benefit from each other.
One way to help each other is called quid pro quo. By viewing each other's blogs and sharing them with others we not only distribute the wealth and knowledge around, but we help the blogger by helping them maybe earn a penny or two for the time they invest in this online medium.
Another way is to reward the blogger with a simple comment letting them you that you've been there and either agreed or disagreed with their statements. A simple smiley can go a long way for a discouraged blogger!
It has taken me a while to realise this simple truth. I would read blog upon blog without a thought of the love being poured into them and quickly move on to the next one.
As I also write for Associated Content, and soon for Demand Studios, it dawned on my how much it meant to me personally when someone made a simple comment on one of my pieces, or on this blog. I have started making a point of promoting the work of other online writers as a "thank you" for generously reading my stuff, and intend to continue that here.
Please, if you read some one's blog you like, if you read an article or a poem - good or bad - please consider leaving a small mark so that the author knows that you have been there. If you really like it, share it with some of your friends and ask them to comment if it pleases.
We may all be online - we may never meet each other - but that doesn't mean that we have to pretend that the other does not exist while visiting places online. Can we share the simple wealth of friendship by leaving an occasional comment?
Here in the future I want to promote that friendship by highlighting blogs and pages that you may be interested in. I hope that you will do the same by sharing things you enjoy with those around you as well.