To humanity through forums and lists

This is a weird feeling.

For all the little (or big) problems that sometimes arise in my daily work, I normally find the way out myself, either in books, if I've got the right one at hand, or in the Internet. But whenever I'm stuck and I can sort it out myself, I ask for help in a forum or a list.

Sometimes people make suggestions, which sometimes work, but sometimes don't. But always I feel wonder at the motivation to help that so many people have. Sometimes this is someone who wants others to be able to solve the problems they're having with the software they developed or released, so to a certain point it's reasonable that they do their best to provide (such informal form of) support.

But most of times, people subscribed to the list would be reading the mails and answering those about something they know about. This is something I get pleasure doing myself, maybe not such much on lists because there's nothing I know so much about that I'm likely able to help others (except perhaps for regular expressions), but still I like helping other and feeling useful. And still I get very moved whenever anyone helps me out (or tries to), whenever someone takes the pain of reading, thinking, replying and getting involved in someone else's problem. It's a bit like when I stop to think about all those who contribute to develop free software, that moves me a lot too.

When I solve my problem I get doubly moved, because I get very happy too, and probably I will have learned something. This is something that I feel like saying sometimes, in my replies, but I never do because it would be an off-topic (not allowed!) and because you don't know who's reading and what cultural backgrounds they have -- they might not understand what you mean, or might be uncomfortable (as when my mum tries to kiss me, auch!) or will probably think that you're a psycho :)

So here's where I air this state of mind of mine. Thank you all, so much. I am very grateful that such people exist, not only because they help me a lot, but because they make me feel human in a good way. Keep it up!