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 some of us it’s watching T.V. – sports, entertainment shows, reality shows, and so on. And for others, it’s doing some sort of activity such as writing a fiction book, 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 instance, even a simple solitary activity like running, is a lot more fun when doing it with a friend. And some sports and hobbies, such as badminton or poker, pretty much require that more than one person be involved.
The problem is that since the early part of the 20th century, we have gradually moved away from each other. Childhood friends now live on different coasts. Family members often only get together on 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 eight or so years, literally thousands of discussion groups have sprung up all over the Internet, begun by people with an interest or hobby that they loved and showing their participants book writing tips. Somewhere in the course of starting their discussion group, most of them discovered that they were not alone in their love of their hobby.
And in many cases, for many people, the common online interest has continued into the real world and created genuine off-line friendships. Friendships that in the good old days never would have happened.
This probably just goes to prove how much of a communal animal that man really is and how much we all need each other to make life worth living.
Chris Edwards write about writing children book. Please visit his website.