A few days ago, on a completely different site, I put forth an… well, I guess you could call it an ‘artistic effort’. A picture, a piece of writing, a video — whatever. The form doesn’t matter, at least not for what I want to talk about here.

I put it elsewhere because I did want it to be seen, and of course the only Readers here are quite Mythical. Hence, it is elsewhere. I will not identify it here.

But I knew when I put it out, that the odds were large that few would notice it, and fewer would care. Those that did care were far more likely to disapprove of it than to approve. So I expected to at best receive no feedback, and at worst a great deal of negative feedback.

Some of that has occurred.

But one person wrote some feedback, where he indicated that he got what I was going for, and enjoyed it. And….

He thanked me for putting it up.

Perhaps it is a measure of my utter lack of self-regard, but that really fucking mattered to me. I just might make something else like it in the future and put that out there, too. Whereas before, I was quite convinced that what I’d just finished would be the last time I’d do something like that, as it seemed a waste of time.

The point is not that someone liked something I did.

The point is this, oh Mythical Reader — if someone puts out there something that you like, TELL THEM YOU LIKE IT. If all they ever hear is how terrible it is, or how it could have been done better, or that they should be doing something else instead, then they’re likely to go away and not do that thing you liked anymore. That’d be a shame, wouldn’t it?