I think therefore I tweet (contd.)

So, my social experiment is complete. I tweeted on paper for 24 hours to try to find out how and why I tweet so much and I’ve come to a few conclusions. My tweets for 12/11 are below.

-I’m about to pee my pants. John Mayer is coming to Atlanta in March.

-This is when being single sucks. I can’t go with my girls. I need a date

-Kem is coming too… I love him. But there’s no one to go with… I’m sad.

- Honestly… 5,159 tweets… who has that much to say?

- This John Mayer Pandora is amazing

-”The rain in New Orleans forgot to stop. But the mouths of the people are dry.” -Joshua Radin “Everything’ll Be Alright”

-”No one wants to be alone during Christmas time… won’t you be my valentine?” -JM

-#notetoself The Fray is amazing. Thank you John Mayer Pandora.

-I don’t want to have anything in my home that can’t be used or touched. Ever. I want my home to be lived in.

-No forbidden rooms. No forbidden objects. I should start now.

-I want to light these candles on my tables center piece… but I can’t bring myself to do it. Grrr!

-#notetoself go to soundcloud.com to embed the media thing

-People are so self-righteous.

-I’m scared of getting carpal tunnel.

-See, this is why i don’t turn on my facebook chat.

-Some weirdo from Egypt just tried to force me to comment something inappropriate on his picture.

-Maybe I should stop skyping too. My South African/Malawian/Mozambiquan friend just pretty much proposed to me.

- I am a habitual status liker.

-To try weave or not to try weave. That is the question.

-I am constantly amazed by the fact that aluminum foil does NOT get hot in the oven! SO COOL!

-I shole am sisterly. Anything they ask of me that I can provide, I do. I like that.

-The don’t all know/understand that though. I hate that… but I digress.

- I’ve already got my godson, now I’m going to have a goddaughter!!! Yay Kaydence!!! I love you already!

-People have hater complexes. I’m totally fine with not being hated, even though I probably am a little… saying that probably got me a hater or two. Sounds like a win win. Touche.

- 1. Why does Emory feel like it’s appropriate to already have my classes up for next semester in Blackboard?

- 2. My importantly, why is there something called “college senior graduation information.”

So, the tweets above total to 27. If that indicates an “average”, then with over 5,300 tweets… I’m no mathmetician, but that just doesn’t add up. So, I’ve been observing, and I know what makes twitter so much fun, so time consuming, and the reason why I tweet so much! (drummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm rollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll) it’s the followers! duh!!! MOST of my tweets, and by most I mean easily 70-80% are responses, comments, or retweets to the people in my timeline. On top of that, I feel compelled to respond to almost every single retweet I get. If I don’t, I feel like I’m ignoring people. So, all in all, I feel better about myself. I no longer think that tweeting is some aimless, ego-boosting, waste of time and that I suck for being addicted to it. It’s really a way to hear and be heard. And as Lil Duval says, “there’s nothing wrong with being a follower, as long as you’re following the right people.”

And with that in mind… I’m satisfied. Tweet on!

@_JBo

I think therefore I tweet.

I’ve noticed I have a problem. I tweet waaaay too much, and I’ve tried to figure out why. Sometimes, I even make conscious decisions NOT to just because. I’ll say ok self, “no tweeting for the next hour, day, or week.” The longest I’ve gone is a little over a week and that was because one of my line sister’s changed my password so that I couldn’t login. (love you 5)… but one day, I tried something different.

One day, I wrote down everything I wanted to tweet… and it’s sad. I’ve begun to think in 140 characters or less, lol. It’s actually a pretty cool thing to do though. And of course, when you’re writing them down for only yourself to see, you write stuff you wouldn’t necessarily put on twitter. Well, unless you’re one of those tweeters.

Honestly, I don’t even know what the point is. It was just cool… I mean, I’m sure there’s some psychoanalysis that could be taken from something like that. Like, I’m sure you could take the themes or topics in your tweets, which are essentially your thoughts, and trace it to how you feel in life right now overall… are you negative, positive, happy, sad, a complainer, supportive, depressed, Godly, wholesome, lascivious, etc. That would be a good way to peek into the way we think… especially the way we think in terms of what we deem appropriate to share. I’m amazed everyday at what some people share on twitter. Not in a judgemental way for the individual per se, but as a judgement of our society and how we got to this point. How did we get to the point where people can tweet about ANYTHING… it’s public. It’s open. People can see you. How come people aren’t more conscious about what they tweet? What they share? Are people no longer concerned with image? I guess there’s something positive to say about the man/woman who doesn’t care what people think about them, but there could also be something negative. It’s like the internet version of being an open-book… no one wants to read you when all your pages are already on display. People want the archives and rare manuscripts… the stuff you’ve got to work for and the stuff not everyone has already seen.

There’s actually this thing called a tweet cloud which takes all of your tweets over the past day, week, month, year (whichever you want) and analyzes them. It tells you your most used words. It’s pretty cool; my number one used word  was “love.” That made me happy. Another one of my most used words was “library.” That made me sad. lol. But same concept as these tweet cloud ppl… perhaps we should just do it ourselves. Twitter is just the modern day public journal… but with feedback. I don’t even think it’s primarily used for “communication.” It can be used to communicate, but we’ve got short spurts of words to do that already… it’s called texting. Twitter is a way to type what you think, no matter how poignant or mundane, and see if people respond, and how. For many, I see them use it as an ego booster. A way to gauge how people think and respond to you. I’ve even participated in conversations with people who’ll say “no one re-tweeted me” or “how do I get more followers” or “re-tweet me”… myself included. And considering how much I tweet, I’m a little concerned about myself. lol… I know I don’t need an ego booster, nor do I need people’s responses or feedback to feel important, but at the same time… I tweet. Why then? For what? Why must I share so much? I don’t share EVERYTHING, but I write a lot of stuff/nothing. Why? Procrastination? Boredom? Compulsion? Like… what was I doing before twitter? I’m sure it was something much less time consuming… or maybe not (cough) Facebook (cough).

Idk… I just want to encourage you to try the write-your-tweets thing. In fact, I think I’ll do it and post it here tomorrow (again… why? why do I have to post it?) lol… Well, I’ll write this excuse off as needing a blog for tomorrow

…and if you want to know a little secret… my 12/2 post was the same day I tried the write-my-tweets thing. And what you see is a combination of my tweets… in poem format. That’s why it seemed so random compared to my other poetry (which I don’t share because… nevermind. another post for another day). And that’s also why I called it “Streaming unConsciousness”… sort of a play on stream-of-consciousness. It was random thoughts from throughout the day like stream of consciousness thinking, but I couldn’t believe I was sharing it because it was so personal, like in a state of unconsciousness, and the rest is history, lol.

So I’m going to try to write my tweets and call it a social experiment, lol. And then, I’m gonna try to psycoanalyze myself… but wait. That probably wont work because I’m me. I can’t analyze myself, can I? Well, of course I can, if we couldn’t then the term “self-analysis” wouldn’t exist. (shrug)… whatever. I’m going to try it and see where this goes. Feel free to join me… I’m going to try to go for 24 hours. Wish me luck.

I need twitter re-hab… like everything, except God, this only good in moderation.

ps. follow me. @_Jbo

Two of my faves:

The Watch or the Compass?

When we think of our lives, inevitably, we consider our purpose and our direction. In terms of how to handle these often overwhelming thoughts, I recently heard one of the most beautiful, and hopeful, analogies I’ve heard in a really long time… and yall know how I feel about positivity and optimism.

Are you a watch or a compass?

Watches tick incessantly. Quite literally, each tick represents a passing second, and after sixty of them, a passing minute. The purpose of a watch is to tell what time it is… but why?  We want to know what time it is because we want to know how little time we have left to do what we’re doing at the moment or how much time we have left before we have to do whatever it is we must do next. All too often, we think of our lives as watches. Things that run out of time and eventually expire… constantly anticipating the next thing.

But consider the alternative… a compass.

Compasses are naturally led by something larger. For them, it’s a magnetic field that leads it without fail and if we personify it, that larger force for us is God. The magnetic field always comes through. It never fails… because it’s natural. The compass just “is.” And in just “being” it is always on track because it allows itself to be led.

I like that. I wanna be a compass.

Random Thought of the Day

Growing pains hurt.

Stream unConsciousness

Don’t push me if you can’t catch… I will fall.

I like to be led. Walk up a little.

Ahead.

I’m not a fan of butterflies that won’t settle.

It’s scary but I like it. Won’t fight it. In one night it

Just happened.

I wish you were closer.

It’s not that I wanna be together.

I just wanna be.

Together.

Finally, I feel like my heart and my mind are in harmony…

best nine seconds ever.

Then, l I realized this isn’t up to me; it takes two.

So, what do you wanna do?

Better yet, what does He want us to wanna do?

Would this be on my mind and in my heart if He didn’t inspire it somehow?

If I could really put this into words the world would stop.

Never thought I could love anyone else in my weakness.

but.

I think I love you.

What if?