I am blogging for quite sometime now. But what comes with experience are encounters with the dark side of the virtual world. To name a few: plagiarism (someone are using lines from my poems and essays), encounters with two conmans (who like and unlike my posts), another con artist (who claimed her brother was dying and sought ways and help to make the latter happy), a cynic (who questioned my love for my home state, Hawai’i), another cynic (who accused me of being desperate to gain attention and labeled me as a prolific liker). But amid all those challenges, I never lose faith that there’s virtue in what we are doing here, in the blogosphere.

Indeed, I never lose faith because, I see the Internet not just the best ingenuity of humanity; but, likewise, it opens massive opportunities to everyone. Topping it all, the Internet is continuously revolutionizing our lives. It connects us like never before. On blogging, it empowers us, bloggers to improve our societies and to serve our communities. It liberate us from our challenges. It’s directing/teaching us to embrace diversity as we learn each other’s culture. With that being said, we are healing the world from the deep wounds of prejudices, divisiveness, and cynicism.

On plagiarism, although words can be plagiarized, note that our thought process that is manifested in our respective work products is exclusive to us. Likewise, the heart and soul we put and invest in every post is unique and distinctive to us as well.

On conmans and con artist, fools may create web of lies and engage in deceptive practices. However, truth is invincible. And it is relentless in its pursuit for righteousness. It will prevail.

On cynics, I respect everyone’s opinions of me. It is with humility that I accept: We simply can’t win everybody. Most importantly, I believe that there’s goodness in everyone and we can learn from each other. And so, I take anyone’s critique of me as a challenge to work harder in improving myself; and, to let my words and deeds speak for me.

To end, none of those challenges can discourage me from blogging and writing. I know myself. My focus is not on any numbers; not on any negativity, but on the type of content that I am sharing. Lastly, I am thankful and humbled for all the support I received from the community. Most importantly, I am so proud of my fellow bloggers who pursue their passions and share their amazing talents and journeys to the world. And I believe our beloved community, the blogosphere is making a difference through collaboration, camaraderie and more. We are humanizing the World Wide Web (which could have been purely digital and commercialized) through our most profound personal ways. It’s very humbling.

 
 
YouTube/Heal the World/Michael Jackson