Category: news

Re-Tweeter

I’ve discovered that I love Twitter.

I’m by no means a power user – right now, my number of total tweets is paltry. I have a tiny handful of followers. I am not an outrageous tweeter or an expert tweeter or a hilarious tweeter.

Mostly, for the time being, I’m a re-tweeter.

To me, the re-tweet is one of the best things invented on social media. Re-tweeting allows me to quickly say something to the world (well, at least to my small number of followers), sharing a little sliver of wisdom without having to do a ton of research myself. Best of all, I get to “curate” content and put on my editor’s cap: what would represent my thoughts and random yet interesting discoveries today?

Sometimes I add a comment to a re-tweet. I’d like to do this more, to provide another layer in the rich palimpsest that is Twitter.

But quite honestly, I don’t always have such a short comment to add. We all know the character limit is pretty harsh. I realize I’m coming late to this party… and I’m not always so short-winded.

I’m working on that.

I think it’s an incredible discipline to winnow an idea, thought, or really any communication worth saying down to such a short, brilliant length. And not just by oversimplifying or adding shock value (can you guess which political candidate I might be thinking of?). No – a good tweet is really quite an art.

I am enjoying Twitter these days largely because I’m choosing the folks I follow very, very carefully. I am also electing not to read the various layers of comments on many tweets, the space where the Internet “trolls” hang out and share their venom. I try to stick with the source material, actual tweets and re-tweets.

Twitter is bringing back a touch of the magic of social media for me right now. Gone – in my world at least – are the early days, like my first efforts on Facebook… where everybody added everybody to everything to gain a large list of “friends,” making for a bigger network. Knowing now the tendency of some to overshare, on Twitter, I’m selecting for those voices I really want to hear on topics other than announcements of singular personal achievements or parents’ musings on potty training (which, I grant you, is a VERY important issue – but I have dealt with that enough in my own family life, thank you very much).

Some folks I’m following on this platform are take me outside my normal sphere, in a good way. For example, I didn’t realize I’d become a fan of the tweets of “neurodiversity” writer Steve Silberman(@stevesilverman) when I got into Twitter. He shares genuinely interesting thoughts and news for those interested in the human brain and in the fields of autism, Aspergers, and mental health.

I am also a fan of any Twitter denizen who posts or reposts really interesting infographics. Recently saw one about tuberculosis worldwide posted by Bill Gates (@BillGates). Again, not a topic I knew very much about. But there it was, staring me in the face, that globally, 1.5 million die from TB annually. This is important.

(In addition to that global point of view, I’ll be watching for time-sensitive local news on Twitter, too. It’s kind of useful to know if a water main broke near your house, or if a raging brush fire has shut down a stretch of the freeway.)

In today’s moment, I have discovered that Twitter can be a great place to turn to for a sip of sanity in this largely crazy ocean we’re swimming in right now, especially on the political waterfront. I’ve followed a couple commentators that I like “live tweeting” campaign speeches or political debates, and their words made me laugh and also breath a sigh of relief that someone else out there gets it.

Granted, I realize that Twitter can reinforce one’s own biases because of this self-selecting of voices. But hey, we make our own choices when we pick people to hang out with – at least as adults – and when we decide which newspapers to read or which novels to buy or which movies to watch, etc. This is just another format for choice – though for me, it’s certainly not my only source of news.

Of course you could fill up thousands of tweets with speculations on the Taylors and Kanyes and a lot of other celebrity or salacious stuff. I choose not to.

And so far, I’m loving it.

Thanks for reading this non-Tweet-sized post about Twitter. You can find me there @MeredithK55should you be so inclined.

Not exactly restored, but returned

I am just now emerging from a terrible flu, a vicious bug that knocked me out for nearly two weeks. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and can say this: It is only when we are forced to stop doing everything that we normally do that we find out how unimportant most of it is (just like when we’re forced to live without 95% of our stuff when we travel, we realize how unnecessary that stuff is).

For me, those noticeably unimportant things (that I normally place far too much emphasis on) were:
1) Email: sorry, friends, I just couldn’t manage to sort through my messages; not that very many of you were actually trying to get ahold of me. Mostly it was the online equivalent of telemarketers.
2) Keeping up with news: yes, I was aware that people were shot in Afghanistan, and that it was horrible; but I did not follow the details or analysis, and the world did not end. Likewise I think there were more Republican primaries… My guess is, some were surprised by the outcomes but no one dropped out, but I can’t be sure; seems as if there are new primaries twice a week these days…
3) Shopping: both in its real and virtual forms; I’m one of those weak, semi-recreational shoppers who keep lists in my mind and am always refreshing them, and with the ease of online shopping, it has become far too habitual. I was able to get by with no shopping at all thanks to a grocery run made for us by my mom.

And of course work had to be put aside and delayed, both of the office and home varieties. When you’re lying in bed sweating profusely through a fevered delirium is one of the very few times when you just can’t feel guilty about pushing back a deadline or ignoring a stack of very dirty laundry.

(Pause while coughing lays me low for three minutes; now back.)

Illness can be important when we do recover, because we are “recalled to life” with a new sense of priorities and perspective. Again, just like when you come back from that vacation where you left your regular “stuff” behind. Only instead of a tan (or even a sunburn), I’m back with big circles under my eyes and the kind of pallor that normally indicates months spent in grad student library carrels…. That is to say, not exactly restored, but returned. And most thankful for it.