Recently, I noticed a tweet that came through with a link to a blog posting that pricked up my ears. The tweet simply read: "Twitter in the Humanities" and gave a link to the blog/post, We Think History: Twitter in the Humanities This was by no means the first or only tweet that I'd seen by a spokesperson for a discipline thinking that Twitter could/should be an ideal medium for their particular field of interest/study/research, etc. However, it was the first time I've seen the term "microblogging" used to describe Twitter, which reminded me....
While out for a stroll recently, I was trying to express to my wife my great preference of Twitter as a social medium. I likened "tweets" to a field of wildflowers (vast varieties, but never more than 14 in. tall), and "tweeters" as cross-pollinators, kind of buzzing from one flower to another (actually "owning" certain flowers, and sometimes alighting on the same flower as a number of other cross-pollinators, gathering pollen and dropping it at the same time). Having a Twitter account is like choosing the varieties of flowers that you wish to visit because "following" is like choosing which other cross-pollinators you want to bump into again. It's an incomplete metaphor of course, but it kind of got the point across.
So, based on all of that, (and as incomplete as the metaphor may be), I've come up with this argument: namely that Twitter is a great way to have a constant stream of virtual inspiration. If inspiration is not important to you, then you might choose to ignore the rest of this little ramble. But first, you might just consider this little side-argument for inspiration; namely that inspiration is also an element of hope.
Hope is important to humans. It is common knowledge that without hope, eventually what we call "despair" will set in. This has been recognized for centuries (and across cultures), the meaning of the word itself surviving across Latin, French, and English is acknowledgment of the state "no hope" [i.e. de- negation, privation) of sperare (to hope)]. Of course, hope cannot be reduced to inspiration, but inspiration is a non-optional constituent of hope.
Why? Because inspiration and imagination go hand in hand; by that I mean there is no inspiration without imagination, and imagination requires inspiration if there is going to be reason for hope. Objects in these two states are not identical of course, but they are both "real" (yet non-actual, i.e. potential) occurrences. Objects of the imagination need never become actual. Objects of inspiration, however, require fruition (i.e. actualization). Inspiration is reason for the hope that an objects of the subjective imagination to become objectively real, i.e. an object in its own right. One cannot be inspired to do something unless it is conceivable (possible/probable) that whatever-it-is can actually be done (or, in certain cases, that there is value in the pursuit of actualization itself).
So, now back to Twitter. Twitter is kind of like a collective imagination. Thoughts, beliefs, suspicions, hints, inklings, etc. being tossed all over the place. I find it nearly impossible to check in on my Twitter account and not find something that inspires me to do something. Often it's simply a case of learning about something (or, learning about whatever-it-is in more detail). Other times it can be something entirely new to me, something that never even occurred to me, but because of the confluence of the cross-pollinators I follow, there is a constant flow of something new to think about, always.
I should think that designers and art-directors would find Twitter particularly useful, but that's a whole other blog posting....
