Are you a writer? I am. Can you imagine a community where writers from all over the world could come together and live in harmony? It would be a place where the writers could critique each other, offer each other encouragement, comments and tips to improve our skills. It would be a living reference book of sorts. It would give us each perspective on where we are from. It could also give us something that all the reference books in the world cannot give us now: unique insight into how other people of the world live and think.

It could help end the preconceived notions and prejudice that slant our thinking and our writing. It could do for us what all the governments of the world cannot currently do: join us together globally for a common goal, giving us -- us -- a chance to educate the world in a way that eluded the great leaders, historical heroes and educators of the past.

Wow…. Just imagine being part of a giant global think tank, to be able to contribute ideas and suggestions on how to make this a better world for us all -- all done while respecting each other and our individual viewpoints. While that sounds like Nirvana for the writer’s soul, what it really sounds like is Hubpages.com.

Can CindyVine in Nanjing, China show us --with a map -- how people of the US are perceived, giving us true direction in what we need to do to change that perception? That map was laugh-out-loud funny.

I am an American. Instead of seeing an insult, I saw an accurate representation about how the United States is perceived by a well-traveled citizen of the world. The accompanying article gives us even better insight into the same subject. That is useful knowledge, not only for writers, but also for our elected officials. In order to remain relevant to the world, we have to be respected.

Yet, on the flip side, by writing my own “hubs,” I can show Cindy that not all Americans are arrogant and high handed -- just our elected government officials and Rush Limbaugh. You see, we can help each other become more tolerant of each other through our community of writers.

Writers shape people’s perceptions by their written words. If, by being part of a global community of writers, we can help shed false ideas and images of our own little corner of the world, we really are changing the world for the better.

Haris Amin can also show us how his people in Iran think about the United States and he gives us, not only insight, but suggestions on how we can go about changing that. Just like most people in America are not arrogant, most people in Iran are not either. We are all people who rely on our respective governments and they do not always get it right. Evemurphy from Ottawa, Canada helps to show us that people in Iran are much the same as us emotionally by sharing poignant pictures of Iranian women and children enjoying life. She puts a face on the people of Iran.

Can Anamika S from Mumbai, India show us that her people are much like us in many interests in life even as she explains the differences? She shows us that the people of Mumbai are…. people -- just like us. They like to cook, they like to watch comedy movies and they have the same hopes and dreams for their families just like we do.

Jen’s Solitude from New Jersey in the US gives evidence that the American people suffer from illnesses that cannot be cured too, like MS. Her struggle to live with a dehabilitating disease -- and to have the courage to share her struggles with MS with the world -- shows the people of the world that we all suffer. Unfortunately, no one and no country is immune to suffering.

If Fenella Fisher -- CindyVine’s alter ego in print -- decides to stop the world to pee in New Jersey in the next Fenella Fisher novel, she has access to people, like Jen’s Solitude, to give her directions to the nearest gas station. Mezo asks us to call, should we ever find ourselves in his native country of Egypt. Not that it is likely to happen, but if I am ever in Greece, I plan to stop by Sufidreamer’s for a glass of Ouzo in Sparti. Though I have to miss out this year, one of these days, I am going to get to a concert on shores of Lake Michigan to see White Summer, James A Watkins' rock band that only performs once a year these days.

Someday, I would like to share a bottle of red wine with badcompany99, our resident bad boy at Hub Pages in Belfast, Ireland, which is actually the land of my ancestors. I would love to eat a tomato sandwich --sprinkled with peppercorn, of course -- on the bank of a river in South Carolina with Teresa McGurk. Though I might either be in Ohio or Florida at any given time, I would willingly share a drink or sandwich with any of these amazing writers. Someday, I may have an opportunity to do just that. You see, we are now never really alone, no matter where we go.

We can learn about numerology from Anamika S, how to make money on the internet from guidebaba, how to survive being fired from nazishnasim, and how it feels to have depression from shailini, along with how to cope with it. We have many resident computer experts, like eugie17, who write easy to read tips on how search engines work and how you can hop aboard. They also explain what meta tags and keyword tags are and how computer hard drives work. We literally have a living, breathing live reference book that we can go to about almost any subject imaginable.

We have great poetry by Tom Rubenoff and Erin Boote, from Pennsylvania, among many others, giving us culture. We have humorous hubs by blondepoet -- who obviously also writes poetry -- from Australia, and from badcompany99, giving us all a laugh when the burdens of the world seem too heavy to bear. We discuss our beliefs, our goals, our hopes and dreams through our hubs and we have people cheering us on to achieve those dreams.

We have professors, psychologists, doctors, nurses and lawyers. We have homemakers, retirees and students. We have actors; we have writers --both published and non. We have accountants, salemen and entrepreuneurs. We have the combined experience of the world at Hubpages.com.

No longer do we have to rely on the world’s newspapers and journalists to tell us how to think and feel about other cultures. We have the people of the world at our fingertips. We find that the people of the US, just like the people of Iran, India, Ireland, Greece, Egypt and many other countries can all have something in common. We have Hub Pages.

We have the combined power of some of the world’s best and brightest as a global think tank, like Tom Koecke from the state of Washington, Sufidreamer in Greece, and Mark Knowles in France. We have many who are ex-pats of other places, like Misha, Russian born and living in metro Washington D.C., and Ivan the Terrible, US born and living in Spain, who have lived under more than one form of government, who are, perhaps, more qualified than some to explain the differences.

At Hubpages, the writers have the opportunity to come together in the forums to find real working solutions for some of our gravest problems. We discuss politics, the environment, war and peace. We gladly give up our knowledge and life's experiences to those who seek it.

Of course, we do not always agree, but those few who would be rude and obnoxious are soon evicted. At Hubpages, we settle our differences intelligently with humor, grace and understanding. We even occasionally agree to disagree. At Hubpages, we respect our friends and neighbors.

As writers, we might suggest that open and honest dialogue beats embargos and propaganda in our dealings with other world governments any day. We might suggest that even two people cannot come together in compromise without rationally talking out our differences. How can we expect the world to?

Our governments and our people are all dealing with some of the same problems, only from different viewpoints. We all have to worry about our environment and make the future of Earth as sustainable for the future as it has been for the past. There is poverty, disease and unrest among all the people of the world. Globally, we at HubPages have the means to make a difference in our environment in a way that the politicians of the world cannot. We have the power to reach out to the people, befriend them and educate them, just as they are educating us.

Yes, we really do have the power that eluded our great historians, leaders and educators of the past, thanks to the internet that links us globally. Thanks to our little community at HubPages -- population over 76,000 and counting -- we are now neighbors and friends. We are all making our difference -- one hub at a time.