#100tweetsofbeauty

Posted by on September 11th 2012 @ 7:45 am

part 1:
I have been on twitter for way too long. (@genedavid) Since November 2008.

I really love it.

I love the brevity. I love the ability to create conversations with friends all over the world. I love the access to information. I love the friends I have made. (Yes, I have made real life friends on twitter with whom I have spent time with in their meat suit form, not just digital form.)

My hackles always rise (whatever hackles are) when people say, “Twitter is dumb. I don’t want to know when you are at Starbucks and I don’t want to see pictures of your lunch.”

To me that feels like complaining about email because it is impersonal.

Twitter has made my life better!

Part 2:
I couldn’t sleep. I was so frustrated. I made the mistake of reading my twitter feed before I went to bed.

It was a stream of screaming and yelling about how our guy is the best and your guy is the worst (coming from all sides).

It felt like I was in a room of people who were all talking at once. It felt like no-one was listening. It felt like everyone was misunderstanding each other and everyone was taking it personally.

There was no light, just a lot of heat.

As I lay in bed I planned my twitter screed. Trying to figure out how to break the statements up into discrete tweets that would hold together as a whole.

Part 3:
Fortunately the morning brought perspective. Not only were my incoherent thoughts sounding like those of a madman, I was only going to be contributing to what I didn’t like.

The only thing I thought I could do (not that it would make a difference) was to respond to the ugliness with what I thought was the opposite.

Beauty.

I decided that the next 100 tweets that I would share were only going to be about beauty.

Beautiful photos. Beautiful pieces of creation. Beautiful fonts (a personal favorite). Beautiful design. Beautiful music. Beautiful words between others.

I was not permitted to respond to anyone else’s tweets. I was not allowed my normal level of snark, nor my overdeveloped sense of irony.

I was/am only allowed to share beauty.

Even though I am only a few tweets in it has been hard. Not that I can’t find beauty. But there are other things I want to share and reply to. Every time one of those urges come up I go and seek beauty.

Even if no one sees it, retweets it, or favors it, my day is better.

Part 4:
I would like to invite you to join me. Not for 100 tweets. That is a lot, but please join me for the next 20 tweets you send. (#20tweetsofbeauty)

Don’t retweet. Don’t reply to friends’ comments. Don’t make fun of a Kardashian. At least not until you have shared 20 beautiful things.

If you are an active tweeter it will take less than 48 hours.

Even if no-one clicks through your links or appreciates your beauty, your day (and mine because I will be clicking through) will be better.

Here are few samples:

Post filed under Creative.