Lost jobs. Companies going out of business. Foreclosures left and right. The stress today, for some of us, is overwhelming. The only thing keeping some of us going is our hobbies. For many of us it is watching television – sporting events, sitcoms, one of the many reality shows, etcetera. And for others, it’s doing some sort of activity such as writing a story, photography, running, or even bird watching.
It probably goes without saying that it’s almost always more fun to share your hobby with a friend than to do it alone For example, even a solitary activity such as running, is more enjoyable when doing it with a friend. And some hobbies, such as tennis, pretty much require that two or more people be involved.
Sixty, seventy, eighty years ago, finding a friend who enjoyed the same things you did was simple, because everyone in a community grew up together. But, as a society, we have all gradually moved away from each other. Childhood friends now live on opposite coasts. It’s not uncommon for family members to see each other only on major holidays because everyone lives so far from each other.
Everything together makes finding those who enjoy the same interests harder to find.
But then the Internet came along. And, conversely from keeping people apart from each other, as many social observers once feared, the Internet has instead become a great resource to bring persons of similar interests together. Over the past 8 years, literally thousands of forums have sprung up over the Internet, started by people with an interest or hobby that they loved and showing their members book writing tips. And in the course of starting their forum, most of them discovered that they were not alone in their love of that topic.
But furthermore, in what has probably surprised many people, their common interest in their hobby has spilled over and continued into the real world and created authentic off-line friendships. Friendships that in the past would have happened because they would have never met.
This, more than most things, goes to demonstrate just how much of a communal animal that man truly is and how much we all need one another to make life enjoyable for us.
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