Twitter vs. The Dinner Table

"Your opinion is your opinion, your perception is your perception--do not confuse them with 'facts' or 'truth'."  John Moore

A funny quote for a piece that runs in the Op-Ed section, but recently I spent some time on a social media platform that I do not normally use, and it seems that many are confused over the differences between facts and opinions. I finally took the plunge and started using Twitter more, and honestly, it still eludes me, for the most part. It's easy enough to sign up, write a Tweet, and post it, but it's a little more complex trying to figure out replies, follows, and retweets. It's a numbers game, and that's probably where the disconnect lies for me. If your Twitter account has a lot of followers, more people will see what you post. Throw in the right hashtags (those words with the # sign in front of them) and even more people will see it. That's kind of the name of the game on Twitter; you want to get the most amount of people to see what you have to say. Quantity seems to count more than quality, but that's just my opinion, it's not necessarily a fact. See how that works?

The Twitter arena is huge. Worldwide the platform has 330 million users, and 145 million of those are daily users. That's a lot to wade through, so narrowing down exactly what you want to read and talk about can be difficult. I'm following a lot of journalists, but I deliberately chose a wide range of outlets and people to follow. Some would say there are two sides to every story, but I would disagree. There are way more than two sides to every story, and if you only pay attention to the parts of the story that align with your stance, you won't have a complete picture of the issue. I really just cannot fathom not being aware of other points of view, even if some of them make my blood pressure spike. Who wants to live in an echo chamber where no new information is ever considered? Well, it seems plenty of people on Twitter want to do just that. 

My debate skills were not honed online, but rather at home. Growing up, the dinner table at my house was often the scene of some heated discussions. More than once my father would make a point while waving a piece of steak balanced on the tip of his fork around in the air, and getting all red in the face. My mother was the moderator, and when she started clearing the dishes, your time was up. More than once a dinner roll might have been tossed at someone's head, but that was mostly my brother. My father's favorite way to end a debate was to say, "Well, when you can show me proof of that, let me know, until then it's just you spouting off, so sell that nonsense somewhere else." More often than not, the next night would find one of us tossing a newspaper clipping, or a book on my father's plate and saying, "Now what do you have to say?" Truly, it was a better education than any class I ever took.

Twitter is nothing like the dinner table at my house. There's no food, and there's no one to clear up the dishes after a particularly snarky debate. It's also more complex, at least for me. One user could say something, and if another user replies with a different point of view, all Hell breaks loose. Hashtags are flying instead of dinner rolls, and everyone is "atting" each other. That's another part of it. If someone mentions you, they do so with the @ symbol and your "handle" which is your Twitter username. It's sometimes considered aggressive to at someone. Please, many of these users wouldn't have lasted ten minutes at the Kelley dinner table. The names we used had no symbols and were mostly sarcastic. Aggressive, at least when making your point, was required. No harm, no foul was the only rule and it worked for us. 

Perhaps Twitter should be more like the dinner table? Whoever is making the meal, decides what gets served up. Whatever winds up on the plate can be taken or left, and often requires a grain or two of salt. If it's something you don't like, you don't get to decide it's wrong, it's just not what you like. One person's favorite meal is another person's cereal night. Yes, that is an oversimplification, but don't we all need things to be just a little simpler right now, and not quite so chaotic? For now, I will probably stick to just scrolling through my Twitter feed, and not engaging much. I'm still up for a debate, I just prefer to be face-to-face, over something delicious, so at least if I get my butt kicked, there's dessert. Happy Tweeting, and if you want to follow me, that's fine, just don't expect much, I'm still new at it.

Is The World Really Your Oyster?

"To each his own magic."

--Libba Bray

Of course, we all say something similar. "To each their own" or "Everyone is different" or "Each to his own way." My personal favorite is "You do you, honey" but I have to cop to it being a bit snarky most of the time. These phrases that essentially say, "I'm OK, you're OK, everyone is OK" are somewhat meaningless platitudes, however. They are trendy like "You only live once!" or "You go your way, and I'll go mine," but they add nothing to the discussion.  Sure, we can all do what we like, within reason anyway. The problem becomes when everyone is sitting around just doing their own thing there is no community. Where is the joining together?

World events, political and otherwise, seem to get more chaotic every day. No matter where you look, it's getting a little loony out there. Call me picky, but while I like a good national defense, I'd prefer there not be saber-rattling and button pushing on Twitter. I would rather there be a debate, some discourse, a lively discussion and probably drinks too, now that I think about it.  We don't all have to hold hands and buy the world a Coke, that's useless, and not everyone even likes Coca-Cola. Also, it's flu season, and I'm not touching anyone's hands if I don't know where they've been.  Still. Everyone is off with "their own," and it's not getting us anywhere, seriously, it's just not.

In high school, I read a short story by O. Henry called, "The Third Ingredient." Two people, both down on their luck, have one ingredient a piece for a stew. They still need a third though.  Eventually, they do find someone with the final item, and these three enjoy a lovely meal because, while each had "their own" it didn't amount to anything without the rest of the parts. That's where "to each, his own" isn't always the best way to be. There would have been no hearty meal if all three people hadn't come together to make it happen, each with their own…magic. Read the story; trust me.

It does work, however, when it comes to personal taste. I have a good friend who lives in Vermont, and while the short days of winter and the lack of sunlight can be problematic, she likes nothing better than a good storm that will dump a foot or two of snow at her door. If I never saw snow again, I would be delirious with joy. She says it's the perfect example of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence. It's true. I'm sitting home now, still in my jammies, watching #Bombogenesis2018 rage on outside my window. While she would describe it as a winter wonderland, for me it's a harbinger of danger and disaster. She doesn't have children, so she often takes mine. I never have a quiet house, and so I frequently jump in my car to go sit on her couch where the only sound is the cat and the fireplace, both roaring, in their own way.

Someone I know, but have never met, was saying recently in a Facebook post (where all my imaginary friendships happen) that she told her son, "The world is your oyster!" To which he replied, "Well yes, unless you don't like seafood. Then it's just where you live." I've never met her son either, but that kid is going places, even if he does have some offbeat quirk that keeps him from liking nature's treasures from the sea, those delectable bits of shrimp and cod and yes, oysters, always the oysters. Perhaps the world is his steak sandwich or his piece of the pie? Smart kid that one, because he's not limiting himself to just one kind of world.

We all look around our lives with our own preferences, our own beliefs and that's as it should be.  Rather than letting that divide us, perhaps it should be what causes us to gather together? I like oysters; this kid doesn't. My friend loves snow, and I'm cursing the weather gods and searching homes for sale in Del Boca Vista, Florida. Why can't we look over at the person next to us at Starbucks, or in the grocery store, and ask them why they like the Yankees instead of the best baseball team on the planet, the Red Sox? Maybe if there's a discussion between a Bills fan and a Patriots fan, there will be something learned. At the very least, the Bills fan and the Yankees fan are both going to hear about some fantastic games; at least if they are sitting next to me. They don't have to switch teams, but since when is it a bad thing to glance over the fence and try to see another point of view?

A Not So Brave New World?

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”

----Seneca

Yes, it’s the holidays and we are all busy with a thousand things that need to get done so perhaps it’s not the time for deep thoughts and philosophy? Too bad, I’m going with it anyway. When one year is ending and another is beginning we tend to turn our thoughts to what is going away and what is coming along.

Arguably, no matter which candidate got your vote, the presidential election is a perfect example of this. The eight years of President Obama are over, that was a given, the election results were not going to change that. As it should be. The law says no one gets to stay longer than eight years in the White House, so a new family will now enter those hallowed halls. Ahem…it’s safe to say we ain’t seen nothing yet, right? I won’t get into politics exactly except to say that if anyone needs me I will be snuggling in the corner with my pug puppy for a little while until my head calms down a little.

Change doesn’t usually bother me, but it seems as if our country is on the precipice of something that no one has ever seen before and I can’t be the only one that’s a little freaked out. Retreating to my favorite vice, after Penny pug, I was binge-watching some Netflix and two documentaries caught my eye. One was about the assassination of President Kennedy and the other was about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Both of those happened at this time of year, in the midst of the holidays and both ushered in a new era of change. Oh, and violence, death, re-birth, and eventual victory. Think about how people had to feel on that random Friday when one minute the President is waving and smiling and the next minute he’s dead. Two days later the man accused of killing him is also shot, and it’s all on live on television when television was barely beginning. People were pretty freaked out then too, how could they not have been?

It was much the same way in 1941, when WW II hit home, literally. A lazy Sunday morning and the next thing it’s almost Armageddon. There was no instant news in those days. It was hours before the first reports of it were reaching the mainland. A cable from Washington DC advising the command in Hawaii of the breakdown of negotiations wasn’t seen by officials there for close to 8 hours. Meanwhile, almost two hundred planes were descending on Pearl Harbor and just like that we were at war. A day later the President is on the radio, trying to be reassuring, and it was an historic effort and while many look back on it with warmth and nostalgia over what would become “The Greatest Generation” you have to know there were more than a few people sitting curled up with a friend, a spouse or a dog and thinking, “What fresh hell is this?”

Those two events were turning points in our history, just as I suspect this most recent election will be seen as. These events signaled the end of much of what we had come to know as familiar and safe. I can’t even imagine how the addition of social media would have added to those tense times. My sense of it though is that while the Internet, Facebook, online news, texting and Twitter have given us many advantages, they are a huge distraction, and yes, Mr. President-Elect, I am talking to you. Look around at what’s happening. This is not a time for Tweet-storms and Facebook fights. We got sh…um…work… to do. That’s what happened after the President was shot, and it’s what happened after Pearl Harbor. People got to work. Rosie the Riveter and Rosa Parks come to mind. I believe women are going to accomplish great things in the next few years, which is typical of us, if I do say so myself. Not just women of course, but we are going to be especially unstoppable I think. Not to be sexist but we have some real skin in the game.

Some really good parts of what we have all come to know are ending, but there will be new beginnings as well. The words of one amazing woman I know are echoing in my head. She watched in horror when JFK was taken from us. Her husband had worked for him; she knew what we were losing. When I was a new mother, the first Gulf War was starting and everything around me was swirling in a sleep-deprived fugue she simply said, “Hang on, darling.” You got it Mary. I’m hanging on no matter what comes.

Keeping it Local

So, people say it's all about staying local. All politics is local, shop local, think globally, act locally etc. The communities we are part of are definitely part of us. It's an exchange of sorts, everyone puts in what they have and takes out what they need. Hopefully at the end of each day or week, it ends up fairly even. That neighbor that needs help shoveling snow and raking leaves might be the one that makes homemade pumpkin bread and choc. chip cookies. It's a marvelous give and take and we would all be poorer without it.

Social media is no exception. While it's hard to define the concept of local when you talk about the Twitterverse or the vast, some would say wasteland, of Facebook, I have been lucky enough to find a sense of community there as well as in my local area. A group of friends that I've known since my kids were wee babes, and AOL was the sum total of the information highway, is still part of my tribe, my posse, my go to gang of wise women and wise asses. Thank G*d for them. Local can definitely be extended to those we know but have never met, and those we have encountered only a handful of times but remain close to through the magic of the 'Net.

As a self-published author, community is everything. There is no publicist for my book, no marketing team, no name brand publishing giant putting me on a whirlwind book tour. There's me, my Twitter and Facebook accounts, local friends and a box of books I lug around in my car. Welcome to independent authorship. It's all good though, because I've met some of the nicest people doing this. There's a feeling of home and hearth when it turns out that the local bookstore is run by the child of someone who graduated in the same high school class as I did. When the gourmet grocery store that I treat myself to every now and then welcomes me with open arms and provides a book launch that was nothing short of epic. When badminton buddies, co-workers and neighborhood moms all pitch in to offer their advice, their expertise and their contacts to help me along the way.

And then, in the vast cyberspace of Twitter is a local businesswoman who has made it her mission to promote all things Marblehead and is generous with retweets and kind words. I do love me some good old fashioned local support. It means the world to me. Find your tribe, know your neighbors and reach out to others. You have something to offer them and they in turn will offer you something, I guarantee it.