Where is the Love?

A friend of mine is an artist.  He is a very skilled painter and he puts on an art display every December.  Yesterday was the 14th year he's had his show.  I've been to 13 of them.  Not only do I enjoy the art, but I enjoy the story behind each piece.  The artist loves to allow people into his mind as he discusses the inspiration and meaning to each piece.  It's probably the most enjoyable part of the showing, if you ask me.

However, this year wasn't the turnout that I expected.  I'm not sure what his expectations were, but they were definitely below mine.  There could have been a lot of contributing factors to that like low temperatures or whatnot, but I won't go through all of them.  

None of that matters to me because barring a blizzard, I just expected more people to come and enjoy themselves.  And to the people who didn't, I ask: where is the love?

Each and everyone of us has a talent.  If we're fortunate enough, someone is able to discover it early enough in life for us to perfect it.  For those who have discovered these talents, it's important that others support them.  And for the life of me, I can't understand why some of us choose to not do that.

My blog started almost 7 years ago.  No one knew about it, so I told some of my Facebook friends.  Over the course of a year or two, people started reading and commenting on my blog posts, but they were people I'd never met.  My biggest supporters were not my Facebook friends, but strangers.  

Don't get me wrong.  A few of my friends read my blog regularly (or did at one time).  But, it was the people from all over the world, that I'd never met, who were commenting and circulating my material.  Why weren't my friends doing the same?  Why were my emails and inbox messages to them to "Like" my fan page sometimes not even being met with a reply?  Why were some of the women I was dating not reading or supporting my blog?  It made me ask myself over again, "where is the love?"  Why is it that strangers propel you to fame while friends wait to claim you afterwards?  Shouldn't it be the other way around?  

My homie put on a really good art show this year.  He always does, but he was feeling it this year.  He had a lot of new pieces that were making their debut.  I even bought one of those pieces to give to my brother and his wife for Christmas.  It's the first piece of art I've ever bought from him.  I also brought someone with me to see his show for their first time.  To me, that's what "showing love" is all about.  You not only show up yourself, but you expose others as well.  That's how you help to grow the fan base.

I have always supported his talents and he's always supported mine by passing on my blog posts to some of his followers.  I know that he will read this post and agree with me about how support is so hard to come by these days.  Despite that, he will keep doing his thing and I will keep doing mine.  And if it takes a bunch of strangers to make it feel all worthwhile, then so be it.  We'll take the love however we can get it.