This is the year that I finally opened the cage door and let the bird app fly.
I posted my first tweet in May 2008. I only know that because I scrolled back through everything to delete it.
Twitter back then was different. At the time, I was volunteering in youth ministry and somehow in the wonders that early adoption of some platforms can create, I found a tribe of fellow youth workers. I don’t know how I found them. I think it’s because there wasn’t as much noise on the app back then and bloggers I followed were starting to talk about it.
Back then, I could post a question or a prayer request and get half a dozen replies in minutes. A quick tweet would result in a couple of visits and comments on my blog. I’ll never forget the first time I went to a youth worker event and we put our Twitter handles on our nametags so people would know who we are.
That sense of community devolved over the years. More people started following me because of my role as a reporter for my local newspaper, fewer were following because of mutual interest. More were seeing my tweets as a newsfeed, fewer were looking at the bursts of text as an invitation to connect. I had hundreds of followers and far less connection.
It’s time to let go and it’s right to do so. That’s the way of most things in life. There are times and seasons for everything. As Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 tells us:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
***
Since last October, so many Twitter users having been looking for the next thing - the Twitteresque clone that lets them keep broadcasting short bursts of thought into the void, hoping someone will notice. They’re looking for Twitter without the baggage of a problematic CEO and an atmosphere that’s becoming increasingly hostile as policy changes are enacted.
But, should we?
Admittedly, I started looking at Mastadon and Post as potential alternatives. Then, I considered what value Twitter added to my life. How much time do I spend mindlessly scrolling? What return do I get on the investment of that time? How much interest and energy do I devote to following the Twitter drama du jour?
In the end, I decided I have no good reason to stay and no good reason to search out an alternative. I deleted all but a couple of tweets, stopped following everyone and am working on removing followers.
The outside chatter in my mind has died down, leaving me to think my own thoughts and pay attention to the world around me. Maybe that’s why people look for an alternative. Maybe the potential for our own thoughts to reassert themselves in the recesses of our minds is too frightening, too fraught with angst to even consider life without social media.
Me? I knew that life once. I’d like to know it again.
A thing to read …
How has it taken me this long to discover the brilliance that is Octavia Butler? I spent the New Year’s weekend listening to the audiobook of Kindred (pictured above) and was completely mesmerized. The time-travel story throws Dana, a writer living in 1970s California, into the world of an antebellum plantation. Initially, her visit to the past is short but as the visits lengthen, her life becomes more entwined in the life of the slaves and slaveowners alike. Certainly, you can listen to it like I did, but I wish I had read it slowly rather than listen to it. Either way, it’s well worth the effort.
A thing to listen to …
If I had to pick one band that has been the soundtrack of my life, it’s U2. From the moment my friend, Katie, passed me a cassette of The Unforgettable Fire while we hanging out in the band room over lunch to find some relief from the pressures of the cafeteria circa 1984 to the giant tome that is Bono’s memoir sitting on my TBR shelf, these four guys from Dublin have been there.
The Joshua Tree was the backdrop to the spring of my senior year in high school and freshman year of college. Achtung, Baby - still one of my top five albums of all-time - led to the massive Zoo TV tour and the first time I saw them in concert. “Walk On” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind offered hope after 9/11. Then, in 2017, The Joshua Tree’s 30th anniversary tour offered the chance for me to take my niece to see the band for the first time.
And now, they’re reinventing some of those classics that created the soundtracks. Only one has been released so far (I think), but it’s a stripped down, acoustic version of that first song that caught my attention, Pride (In the Name of Love). Some words have changed, but that’s OK. Writers are always editing, aren’t we?
A thing to remember …
What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
From Mary Oliver’s Mornings at Blackwater (shout out to The Stories Between Us community for bringing this poem to my attention.)