Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Tweet?

Empty Gate Zen Center has taken some further baby steps into the new millennium, with both a Facebook page and a Twitter thingie. Along with the Yahoo Group, we'll use Twitter to send out Center news and (daily?) Zen aphorisms.

Which reminds me of visits to my father's father (we called him Zeyda, which is Yiddish for grandfather). This was 40-some years ago, and I was too young to be curious about the facinating life Zeyda had lived. Let alone to be grateful for his courage in crossing continents and oceans from Ukraine so that his lucky descendants could be born in America. I did notice how out of touch he seemed to be about the modern world, calling a refrigerator "the icebox" or a car "the machine."

My sage brother would explain that just about everything in the world had changed since Zeyda's childhood. And (my brother would whisper to me) the world changes faster and faster, so the day would eventually arrive when I'd find myself even more clueless than Zeyda was then.

Twitter reminds me of that long-ago prediction. Not only do I fail to figure out Twitter technically... I can't even grasp the concept of wanting the world to know what I'm doing minute to minute. But I got my own Twitter account anyway. I don't expect to send out much; I still haven't worked out how to connect it to my BlackBerry.

Why did I bother to join Twitter? Because it's what all the kids are into; it appears to be the Biggest New Thing since levitating ping-pong balls. So maybe my membership at Twitter will magically and mystically forestall that fateful day my brother whispered about. Besides, I do enjoy following some of the "Tweets" that others send out, like: 2012 is for people who were disappointed with Y2K (from Guruphiliac) and Looking for the meaning of life is like looking for the square root of purple (from Duhism).

7 comments:

Doug said...

My thoughts on twitter are nicely summed up by this convenient Venn Diagram:

http://graphjam.com/2009/05/03/song-chart-memes-things-twittered/

stuartresnick said...

Excellent, Doug. If I think too much about the Diagram and the ad line below it ("Follow Graph Jam on Twitter!"), it'll make my brain explode.

Doug said...

Another good twitter related link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4EoN4nr5FQ

Unknown said...

came on here just to see there any kindred kind of true soul seekers round these parts unlike that bunch of churchless fraudulent prats that talk themselves into a whirlpool of no-thing-ness

stuartresnick said...

zirbata said...
came on here just to see there any kindred kind of true soul seekers round these parts.

It's hard to say whether or not I'm a soul seeker. What's a "soul"?

Unknown said...

well if you don't know I guess somebody might

ain't about to go round in circles talking for the sake of it expressing a whole bunch of intellectual nonentity

those that seek that which resonates as truth should seek where such truth may be found, others are simply content to exercise their own conceptual rigmarole of what resonates in their own self centered minds eye.

truth on the other hand, or perhaps some may call it soul, is not, or may never be exposed out here in cyberspace nor in the cold reaches of incapacitated intellect.

stuartresnick said...

Zirbata wrote...
truth on the other hand, or perhaps some may call it soul, is not, or may never be exposed out here in cyberspace

Hi again, Zirbata. I'm not sure what it is you want. It sounds like you have some ideas about "truth" or "soul." It sounds like you're looking for other people to agree with your ideas.

If you'd talk about what you actually experience, perceive, or do... that'd be different. I'd find that more interesting than just hearing about the words and ideas in your head ("truth," "soul," yada yada). Notice that in your comments so far, there's not a single word, not a tiny speck, that speaks to your own experience.