Advice and failing faith...

I got advice from a very dear friend yesterday, but instead of the advice leaving me feeling satisfied, it kind of upset me. My friend has worked for two of the most prominent corporations in the United States. She's a very savvy business woman and so smart about business matters that sometimes she gets on my nerves, lol.

Her advice was given after a conversation in which I told her my plans for licensing some of the collections I have been making. I told her that I've received great response from my posts (and pics of my creations) on forums, my blog, my site, etc. She then advised me not to share pics or details of my collections with anyone if they are something I plan on licensing and profiting from.
Disappointment hit me hard. I was disappointed in her at first, that she would actually imply that the great artists I meet in cyber space would maybe do something like steal from me and then license them as their own before I did. How could she say something like that? Then I remembered that she works in an office where if you say "good morning", there's most usually a reason behind it.......to get the scoop on you so that they can talk behind your back or to give you the dish, to enable that never-ending carousel of gossip.

I do fully understand that if I were to take the chance to share my creations online, I must also take the chance that some of my concepts (or whatever) will be used elsewhere.....frankly, I find that a huge compliment. If someone thinks that much of my stuff, I must be doing something right. That's just my thinking, anyhoo.

But, I sit here and wonder what our society has become. Have we really gotten to the point where we hoard our passions and our happiness so that we can merely be selfish and keep it to ourselves? So that nobody but else benefits from the beauty we create? I think not. That is the reason I create.........to share. To spread what is in my heart and from my hands and hope that it touches someone else's life.