The Deep and Thorny Way: Going Twitter

For just at that moment the light came over the hill, and there was a mighty twitter in the branches.
- The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien

After about a week of considering pros and cons I have at last decided to join twitter, at least for a trial arrangement. For quite some time I found twitter to be an unattractive form of social exhibitionism, a place where people spew out mundane details of their very mundane lives for all to see. It was predominantly this notion that kept me away for so long, for my life is as mundane as most other people's and I was satisfied with a weekly status update and the odd album on Facebook as my exhibitionist outlet (and this blog, of course). Then I realised two things that slowly made me change perspective. First of all Facebook is not an apt forum for the various things I would actually like to share with my friends, that is quotes and various finds from my journeys through books, details about my research and discoveries from the material world at large. Secondly I was reminded that although people have a tendency to litter the cyberspace with personal details of little or no interest to anyone but themselves, I did not have to do that and nor did I have to follow people who do that.

Twitter appears to me a great forum for keeping in touch with the academic world and friends whose updates you find interesting or care about sufficiently to enjoy even the mundane aspect from their lives. I have not yet decided all the things I want to do with my twitter account, but at this preliminary stage I find it to be a nice venue for sharing quotes from various books, articles and poems I've read, constellations of words I would like other people to know about. I will also use it as a means to promote my blog. Aside from this, however, I do not know where the tweets will take me, but stay tuned for developments.

For those who would like to have their lives potentially enriched by quotes and discoveries, my twitter account can be found here: https://twitter.com/#!/HopeSteffen. Followers or suggestions are all welcome.