Flickr, Friends, and the Balanced Life.

Flickr, Friends, and the Balanced Life.

I’m sure you’ve all been through this. You start on Flickr just to archive your pictures. Then you begin to meet people; people with the same interests. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they? All of a sudden you have friends out there. It just snowballs, doesn’t it? It’s not that you’re actively seeking out more ‘Contacts’, but somebody new comments, you look at their work, their profile; you say to yourself ‘I like this person, I want to keep in touch, see what they’re going to upload next.’

You started off uploading a few photos for half an hour the odd evening, now you’re on for two hours, three? Most evenings? Well, you like these people, you’re learning from them, you’re inspired. You’re enjoying yourself.

Yes, but with work, family, chores and everything else you just can’t fit in that much time for something new for the long haul. Something has to give, and generally it shouldn’t be work or family or all the other really important stuff. So the sad part is, the time comes out of your other hobbies; like the painting.

So this is for my ‘Flickr’ friends: I’m telling you this so that you’ll know and understand if I have to pull back a bit; if I can’t perhaps chat at such length or so often, or make as many comments. It’s not that I’m bored or tired of it, or you. Quite the contrary: I am stimulated and motivated as never before. And when I’m commenting, I like to think about that picture of yours that inspires me, and ask myself why do I like it so well. It tends to take a bit of time to figure out what I want to say in a comment.

So if I don’t respond to your comments in quite the same way, or address each one in the future, please know that I really appreciate hearing from you just the same. I’ll still be here, but I’ve just got to get everything into a proper balance.