PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
Last evening after dinner I decided to see a movie at the old local art theater. As I waited for lights to dim, I pulled a small black notebook out of my purse and began writing starting with the days date and time in the top right corner as I always do: April 12, 2010, waiting for The Ghost Writer. I jotted down a few thoughts and suddenly remembered a conversation with a friend I had had the day before. She was just beginning to post remarks on twitter.
I opened my account, posted one remark and minutes later I had a follower, she said.
A follower? Whats a follower?
Its someone who reads your Tweets, you know, someone who follows what you are doing.
I dont do anything interesting enough for anyone else to care, volunteered our mutual friend who was driving us all to a play.
The three of us joked and laughed about celebrities who kept their followers apprised of minute details of their lives. Meanwhile, my friend was busy Twittering, Going to play. Community Theater.
There. I can tell them if it is good or not. Maybe someone else will want to come.
We arrived at the theater and that was the end of our conversation about Twittering. I dont know if my friend gave a report to her followers after the last curtain fell, and I didnt think about social networking again until a couple of days later when I began writing in my notebook at the movie theater. I looked at what I was scribbling on the page: Waiting for The Ghost Writer. Dad seems to be doing well- stayed till midnight he was sleeping soundly. Check out Mercury in night sky .
Suddenly I smiled. My short comments could just as well have been keyed into a Twitter account. The difference was my notebook remains private. I might go back and reread an entry; it might be a seed for a column or article or find its way into a book. But until it did, no other eyes would see it. On Twitter, who knows, I might have a following!
I have no desire to send a constant string of notes about what I am doing or thinking into cyberspace for anyone to read. I am a recorder of my life and thoughts. You are reading my blog, so I am not adverse to sharing my musings, but not minutia. Not constantly. I love email and Skype is wonderful for keeping in touch with family and friends around the globe, but I hover on the fringe of a generation that craves sharing and consuming vast quantities of information. Recently, my brother-in-law revealed two things that made him feel old: His state Golden Discount Card arrived in the mail just a week before his sixtieth birthday, and he purchased hearing aides.
My wakeup call came at the movie theater when I realized I am not interested in disseminating photos and information to a gaggle of friends on Face book or MySpace. I am content with blank-paged journals or small black notebooks, the Moleskine brand, that its manufacturers are pleased to say were used by Hemingway and Picasso as if my words and doodles immediately become weighty and worthy of an audience when captured in those pages.
My former editor is probably laughing in his grave. He reminded once, after years of emailing my column to him rather than visiting in person, that once I had written about cell phone and emails downside: constant availability and lack of personal contact. Never say never. I may find my tweeting voice yet, but for the moment, I still like fountain pens and hardcopy books and will leave tweeting to the information generation and birds
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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