Radical Interdependence and Online Telepathy: How Twitter Helps Us Find One Another
It’s springtime in New Orleans after 2 and a half years of
winter. A rebirth has begun -- new flowers are blooming along the sides
of streets that were once underwater. I was there for a sunshine-filled
week in April during French Quarter fest. Musicians played out on the
streets in their fedoras and shades and none of the clubs charged a
cover. I’d never been to the city before and felt welcomed by its
chilled out vibe and music at every corner -- but also by its open, at
times jarring displays of pain and lonesomeness -- some somber, some
festive, and some that were both at once. This lack of pretense sets
the stage for a very liberated yet melancholic scene: the blues that
made the city famous have themselves been beaten a deep, steel drum
azure to match the nighttime skies over the levees. All that’s left is
to play it -- to bang on the stars and let the world know that this
mythical place is rising again.
I went to check it out and
saw firsthand the NEW New Orleans that I’d been reading about in
colorful dispatches NOT found in the national news -- which has long
since moved on from chronicling the city’s grim struggle -- but in the
form of the triumphantly poetical “tweets” of a woman named Evelyn
Rodriguez, or “eve11” as she calls herself on Twitter, the
micro-blogging social network where I hang out online. A Twitter user
publishes “tweets,” or tiny posts of 140 characters about whatever it
is they’re doing -- however banal or inadvertently poetical -- “everything
from what they had for lunch, or what airport they're stuck in...to
profound declarations of revolutionary activism and links to emerging
tech tools” -- for a group of followers who have added them to the
list of people from whom they want to receive tweets. These can be
people they already know in real life or online, or they can be total
strangers that they find through Twitter itself or a Twitter search
engine such as Summize.
Eve11’s
tweets heralded a Southern hipster/zydeco punk peer-to-peer renaissance
that was a citywide version of the kind of awakening that I was
experiencing on a personal level. Her messages of hope and resiliency
came at just the right time, in just the right way, and were the
tickertape proof that the profound change that I felt in my own life
was happening all around the world and that I didn’t want to keep quiet
about it anymore.
This isn’t really the right way to put it
-- as Evelyn would surely agree; it’s hard to make sense out of
enlightenment with words, but here goes:
I’ve realized that
we’re in the midst of a speeding up of the rate of exchange between our
thoughts and desires on the so-called “inside” and that which actually
happens on the so-called “outside”…a speeding up which will eventually
prove such distinctions between inside and outside to be arbitrary in
the first place…
(but more on that later)
Twitter is
perhaps the most fluid of all the major social networks. When I’m on
Twitter I’m tuning into “collective life streams” as opposed to
interacting as a member of a criteria-based group. The fact that
Twitter is mobile and able to be used by text messaging via cell phones
provides new possibilities for making the most out of “between”
moments. Many people find the time to tweet as they travel between the
places where groups meet -- in other words, when they are outside of
the group and defined only by their individuality. This in turn opens
them up to the possibility of finding new groups from far flung places
on the social graph. Tweets take place in taxi cabs and in airports,
while waiting for trams and waiting for a concert to start. A group
could be formed around people who are fans of a movie -- or around
passengers stranded together at an airport who use Twitter to craft a
“real time” letter of complaint to an airline CEO. Twitter is about
being untethered from the world of heavy buildings and offices and
computers, but at the same time being aware and informed. The more
people you follow, the wider net you cast with which to gather
information. I follow fewer people than many and I still hear about
most breaking international, national and citywide news from someone on
Twitter first.
Twitter is a great tool for DIY,
self-organizing “un-groups” such as the stranded airline passengers
mentioned above. As the name would imply, an un-group doesn’t have a
membership policy or an explicitly agreed upon set of rules and
hierarchies. Un-groups aren’t meant to be solemn brother or sisterhoods
that one swears an oath to uphold. They are the practical, quick and
easy collaborative attempts to solve any number of problems. What’s
more, the specificity of the un-groups makes it such that belonging to
one doesn’t define you as a person -- perhaps you work as an executive
for Phillip Morris trying to figure out how to sell more cigarettes but
also coordinate your neighborhood’s recycling efforts in a city or a
town where the municipality refuses to do it.
We live in a
society that has learned to accommodate such contradictions. For most
people it’s not (yet?) about giving up their former lives -- they’re
still trying to fit the change that’s underway within their lives as
they currently exist, instead of allowing the change to dismantle the
old framework entirely. The good news is that the revolution/evolution
only needs the exact amount of time and the exact amount of resources
that you’re able to give to it. Not everyone is ready to leave behind
every single vestige of the old way of being behind--nor is that
necessarily what is required. Enlightenment isn’t about becoming
someone else, but becoming more uniquely YOU:
"There's a myth
that awakening and the ever-unfolding enlightening is only for saints,
Buddhists, someone holier than thou, someone special,
someone-anyone-else. (Ha! I'm totally busting the saint archetype - my
imperfections have never been more glaringly obvious and wholly okay.)
We think we'd become something Other, maybe we'll morph into Mother
Teresa or Jesus or Buddha or Joan of Arc or god knows. That's not it --
we become more nakedly ourselves, without the burden of maintaining an
awkward and cumbersome image of ourselves (we most certainly do not
become anyone else)."--Evelyn
The old, outdated structures are cracking and tumbling down under the
weight of their own overhead. We’re entering an entirely new paradigm,
not just a change of power in the old. Obama becoming President, as
great as he seems to be, is not what’s going to make this huge change
happen. Things will change forever when people all across the globe
realize that they can effectively organize without big corporations,
the church or the government and that a new level of power to the
people is FREE for the taking. The effects of the proliferation of
these new kinds of un-groups (which is to say, new, non traditional
groups) is the focus of Internet Analyst Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes
Everybody:
"The increase in the power of both individuals and
groups, outside traditional organizational structures, is
unprecedented. Many institutions we rely on today will not survive this
change without significant alteration and the more an institution or
industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and
more complete the change will be. The linking of symmetrical
participation and amateur production makes this period of change
remarkable. Symmetrical participation means that once people have the
capacity to receive information, they have the capability to send it as
well. Owing a television does not give you the ability to make TV
shows, but owning a computer means that you can create as well as
receive many kinds of content, from the written word through sound and
images. Amateur production, the result of all this new capability,
means that the category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior
rather than a permanent identity."—(Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, 107-108)
This is the cultural equivalent of a multi-million person flash mob --
since there isn’t an official group to raid, censor or arrest, the
revolution of the un-group can’t be stopped or adequately contained --
at best it can be temporarily aggregated in community nooks and
crannies. It turns out that we don’t need to spend the time and energy
to be a part of highly structured groups with large overhead costs and
time-sucking bureaucracies. Acting as non-managed, highly motivated
un-groups of individuals tends to be a more effective and efficient way
of doing things. An example of this is the tremendous growth of Wikipedia,
the online, user-generated encyclopedia. This unmanaged, unpaid,
ungroup effort is the result of over 100 million hours of work. The
cost of managing a project of this scale would have been astronomical
-- but in the case of Wikipedia, the un-group worked collaboratively
and the product came together organically.
Evelyn’s tweets made me realize that the crossover was happening -- that this new way of self-organizing had spread offline.
Sure there are kids who are wide AWAKE in every city in every country
but in order for a really new way of being to truly take hold, the old
way of doing things to be called into question and/or done away with
altogether. As everyone knows, most of New Orleans was left to drown
after Katrina -- a botched and tardy response by all responsible
governmental agencies went largely unpunished even after “You’re doin a
heck of a job, Brownie,” and similar media bites were broadcast
endlessly around the world. Many poorer residents who survived were
given one-way tickets out of the city, in some cases as far away as
Utah, and not offered a viable way to return home. Some are scared to
come back, upon hearing reports of increased crime and levees that
still aren’t fully repaired. “Why should I let them finish me off?” is
the reasoning of some.
If there was ever a place in which a
brand new way of living could take root in America, this was it. Based
on eve11’s tweets, a new America is exactly what is being dreamed into
being:
eve11: OH, an hour ago: "This is so New Orleans, I love it." Ref'ing Casey's Cozmic Drum Cage Interplanetary Rhythm" installation.
eve11:
Couldn't describe half these hacked diginstruments at NoizeFest. Music
may not be entirely my scene, but I love backyard roadshows anyhow.
eve11:
Chaz Fest is quintessentially New Orleans. DIY, hand-drawn signs, live
local bands, homecooked (yum crawfish dumplings) in funky backyard.
eve11:Musing
aloud of a New Orleans neo-renaissance BarCamp-style unconference for
grassroots folks to dream, ignite, share.Maybe at XO Studios.
I quickly became addicted to these “verbal snapshots” about a
renaissance that she likened to a start-up at a city/neighborhood
level. Healers, activists and social entrepreneurs were moving into the
frontierland of the still decimated flood ravaged neighborhoods and
turning garbage into gold. She told of barter galleries and the
organization “Food Not Bombs” offering weekly free meals made from food
rescued from grocery store dumpsters. She reported upon the politicized
messages and murals that the city’s graffiti artists put up as well as
their ongoing war against the “Gray Ghost”, an angry ex-marine waging
his one man war against graffiti. He covers it up wherever he finds it
(including historical buildings or street signs) with a coat of gray
paint that is in many cases more unwanted than the original graffiti.
Despite this ex-marine’s vigilante efforts, the artists persist,
tagging walls with slogans such as “Disobedience is progress” and “We
have a lot of ♥ work to do”.
There were art shows on front lawns and inside old multi-family
“shotgun” houses (named so because of their long, barrel like design)
and abandoned homes that had themselves been turned into pieces of
art—like the one filled with dirt that’s literally blooming with
flowers from its windows, nooks and crevices with flowers. One friend
of hers owned two houses -- one was destroyed by Katrina, another by a
fire. She tweeted about how he rebuilt one and cleared out the lot of
the second—his plan being to turn it into a communal shamanic garden
space.
Twitter’s “rushing river of brevities”-- as described
by the web usability analyst and social media specialist (as well as
noise musician and anarchist) Vaspers the Grate
-- is well suited for brainstorming new possibilities. The
juxtapositions have a Beat-like quality to them of being startling
enough to suggest new ideas and connections. The way in which the
immediacy of the cut-up effect takes precedence over the actual content
of the tweets resembles Burroughs’ recipe for finding what he referred
to as “intersection points” in his essay, “In Present Time”:
"Now try this take a walk a bus a taxi do a few errands sit down
somewhere drink a coffee watch tv look through the papers now return to
your place and write what you have just seen heard felt thought with
particular attention to precise intersection points." –William
Burroughs, “In Present Time”
His instructions sound a lot
like the transcript from a typical afternoon’s worth of tweets except
with Twitter you get even more chances for intersection points as the
technology allows you to have other peoples’ “present time” interwoven
with yours. Part of what I connect with Evelyn on is her ability to see
the potential of social networks as artistic mediums for creating real
time analogues of human consciousness. Several years ago (“in another
lifetime”, as she puts it) she was a social media consultant living in
the Bay Area. A series of dramatic events, including her experience as
an injured survivor of the 2004 Tsunami--as well as her return visit to
the beach where it happened in Thailand a year later —led her to put
aside and eventually give up her career and focus instead on
collaborating in the global awakening that she realized was going on.
She made art herself and helped others to make it. She “rolled into
action” to help the needy not out of obligation but simply because it
felt right.
The essential spontaneity of life -- of the
naturally winding path that our imaginations like to take when left
free to wander -- is something that Evelyn feels is captured well on
Twitter, and why she encourages other free-spirits to use it as a tool
of expression. Recently, she began Twitter Twainings on Thursdays in
New Orleans in order to help teach local residents how to use the
service:
"Summer, for me, is a time of live meals. Of
lightness. I think that's why I'm smitten with Twitter. Simple.
Spontaneous. Flirtatious. No craft, no technique, no scripting, no
editing, no hemming and hawing, no trying to achieve the perfect post.
Now, and now, before you blink - just blurt your heart out." --Evelyn
Since deciding to follow her heart, Evelyn has still had hard times,
but it was through these times that she was inspired to help create new
ways of being. On her blog she writes about being broke and hungry in
San Francisco and feeling like an outcast from the world of restaurants
and people feasting happily on food that would be thrown away if not
finished. During her darkest moment she went for a walk and discovered
a row of fruit trees on a street in her neighborhood that she’d never
noticed before -- branch after branch laden with ripe, succulent fruit.
These fruit trees became her main source of sustenance in the weeks
ahead. It was this experience that inspired her to formulate her Pan
Mesa vision of a future in which fresh and whole locally grown foods
are available free for everyone:
"Divide, and conquer. A
very, very ancient tactic to breed war and conflict -- and maintain the
illusion of control and power over others. So, if we want to reclaim
our power, sometimes the simplest of things to do start by meeting me
at the table. We'll see where things go from there. Stretch me, why
don't you?
"I believe that everyone brings something to the
table. That we as human beings have more common interests than
separate. If only we would sit down together, share some bread and tea,
and converse." --Evelyn
The Pan Mesa vision
is one of eating to celebrate the fact that you have food by sharing it
with as many others as possible. It’s a philosophy for offline living
based in part upon the new world of the internets, where open source
software makes having your own website and the ability to share with
others cheap, easy and fun. In most cases, the idea is to get as many
people as possible to come over and share in whatever you have posted.
There are pessimists who declare that the rise of the internet is
detrimental to having a tight circle of friends, as it makes people
spend less time outside with others and more time alone in front of
their computers. Evelyn and others (such as Stowe Boyd -- in his essay on web friendship, which Evelyn links to in her own post on
the subject--argue that it’s having the opposite effect and fostering a
new version of friendship—one that is more open, more fluid, more
diverse, and less determined by the hard facts of the groupings you
belong to (where you work, where you go to school, where you live) and
more by your interests. A Pan Mesa vision of friendship is one that is
about a feeling of connectedness created by giving gifts and making
things for one another -- like blog posts or mixtapes or being
available for long IM conversations in the middle of the night when no
one else is answering your calls or texts in your time zone.
Even if you don’t know their real name -- or what they look like.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a place or need for neighbors and
best friends who stick by you over the years through thick and thin --
but this is about creating MORE opportunities for a deeper kind of
hanging out that isn’t confined to going shopping together or eating at
fancy restaurants or “partying”. It’s bringing something from the
oldest parts of human civilization -- the communal meal--together with
the newer notion of the quick, flexible and easy to form un-group:
"September 7, 2007
9/11 and home is where the hearth is
A Twitter friend muses:
What would happen if everyone except health and emerg services took
next Thursday 'off'? No business, no driving. Just self-reflection.
And then: Maybe even cook a meal at home? From scratch?
What if we invited our neighbors over too?
Not Just Another Day in the Neighborhood, Let’s Gather the Neighborhood to Cultivate Peace
…is the subtitle for the Make Tea, Not War Communi-teas I’m kicking off Sunday and Tuesday.
I think my Twitter buddy meant next Tuesday, September 11th too.
But heck, why not next Thursday, or the following Wednesday? And then
picking up steam, every spur of the moment thereafter? Rotate homes.
Use twitter and SMS to broadcast to your friends and neighbors
spontaneous get-togethers like:
Paul brought home tons of heirlooms, twitter or text back if you’d like to come over at 6.
Or: Masala chai brewing. With goat cheese and figs from Saratoga farmer’s market. Ready in hour. Come over to Bev’s." --Evelyn
As I said somewhat cryptically at the beginning of this post -- Twitter
quickens the rate of return between ourselves and the universe -- what
we put out through Twitter often comes back to us in a new and
unexpected way that’s beholden to an exact moment in time. I don’t know
how it works exactly, but I think it’s similar to how a DJ at a club
reads the vibe of the crowd and responds with a track that somehow
manages to hit each individual like a deliciously distorted echo of
their own voice telling them everything they needed to hear. “How could
the DJ KNOW that’s what I was feeling?” one is left to exclaim. Twitter
telepathy is based on the same complicated invisible connections
between members of various un-groups which makes it also seem like
magic.
In the case of @eve11
the “telepathy” happens at an uncanny frequency. There are times when
I’m sitting around, thinking hard about something when a buzz will come
through on my phone and it will be Eve11 tweeting my exact thoughts. I
began to wonder if there might be some mind reading involved after all.
When I met her in person at Flora’s café in NOLA, she was relaxed,
smiling, yet also very serious and steady. I didn’t feel any sensation
of her trying to push her way into my thoughts or read me too closely.
Instead her presence was like the rest of Flora’s—deeply welcoming yet
slightly sad at the same time, and after a few minutes I realized that
I’d never have a single answer as to why I’d felt compelled to come.
Something to do with Twitter and the major transformations happening in
the world and in my life, and how I was having a harder and harder time
keeping it hidden.
We talked about writing and Twitter and
not drinking and her former life as a consultant as neighborhood locals
and national guardsmen stopped in for coffees to go.
As we
finished our iced teas and got ready to leave she told me about how
she’d read A Wrinkle in Time for the first time the week before in one
sitting. She’d then gone on to read one of the sequels -- A Swiftly
Tilting Planet. She told me she liked the part in A Wrinkle in Time
when Calvin feels compelled to walk out to the haunted house in the
woods, where he runs into Meg and her younger brother, Charles. They
ask him what he’s doing there and he can’t tell them. There was no
other reason -- no deeper explanation -- just a compulsion to be at
certain place.
“I really like that,” Evelyn said, and smiled
as the barista walked around behind her, snapping off the café lights
one by one.
“I like that too,” I said, my heart pounding in
my ears. A Wrinkle in Time had been my favorite book when I was a
little girl. Out of the blue a month or so prior I’d ordered a used
first edition copy off of Amazon. Oddly enough, I’d never read the
subsequent books in the series.
“You should,” Evelyn said,
her eyes sparkling. In A Swiftly Tilting Planet she writes about
kything, a wordless one-to-one kind of telepathy and a way of being
present with one another across time and space.”
“Really?
Well, I’ll definitely have to read it,” I said. I reached over and
pulled out my copy of A Wrinkle in Time from my bag. Evelyn smiled and
looked only slightly surprised to see it.
“I think I’d like to find out more about kything.” I said.
The barista switched off the last set of lights and we were cast as
statues by the amber streetlights outside—themselves reflected in
Evelyn’s sparkling eyes:
Our world in stupor lies
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair
Show an affirming flame.
–W.H. Auden, “September 1, 1939”
Sign up on Twitter for FREE at http://twitter.com and follow fellow Evolvers!
http://twitter.com/true--JP (me) on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/realitysandwich --Tweets from and inspired by Reality Sandwich
http://twitter.com/dpinchbeck --Daniel Pinchbeck on Twitter
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- 6-6-08
- Jennifer Palmer's blog
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Comments
Potlatching
Hey I just learned about potlatching a couple of weeks ago in anthropology class. I've been writing a paper on it for the past two weeks. I love the idea of converting material possessions into social wealth.
I hang out with the so called "punk" scene in Chattanooga. I have never felt more accepted or welcomed by any other group of people. No one is a judge and everyone shares what they have. If you need some food or a place to sleep you have it. Of course this requires reciprocity to work.
I used to be a very self-centered and shamefully greedy person, but I have slowly found out that money, me, and more me is not important. I don't worry or care about how much stuff I have anymore. It's more fun to give than to receive. It's almost selfish to give in a way, but a good way.
Anyway thanks for writing the article. I am in tune.
try to run, try to hide...
Ecolocal (SOMOS):
Why are you always so downtrodden and negative?
Nothing is ever good enough for you, but somehow you've got it all sorted out.
Every forum or place where you write you come with the same bah-humbug vibe. You can change your name all you want, but your vibe "shines" through.
The Human Network
...and if you want to read up on how these networks and technologies are beneficial, start here, (take your time, there's a lot to read):
The Human Network
Wow, negative vibe is right ..
ecolocal's viewpoint is shockingly one-sided and wrong-headed. was information in a better place before the internet? maybe with just three tv channels telling you the news? or was is better before the printing press, when only hand written books were available to the nobles.
all technology brings good and bad change, brings wealth to some and not to others. but to say it is not progress is not looking at history. information continues to be less centrally controlled and more widely available, even to the have-nots, which has to be a good thing.
Optimize Your Outlook or Perish in Paranoia
unrat:"...three tv channels telling you the news? or was is better before the printing press, when only hand written books were available to the nobles."
exactly.
here's a little bit about how farmers and fisherman in India and Kenya are using their phones to improve their lives.
from Mark Pesce's The Human Network
http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=27
Just a few years ago, some of India’s many telecoms companies blanketed the Kerala coast with GSM mobile service. Nothing particularly unusual in that – India is right behind China as the fastest-growing market for wireless telephony. In the entirely deregulated Indian market, price competition is fierce; call rates average just a penny or two for an SMS, and just a few cents a minute for voice calls. That seems incredibly inexpensive to us – but when you factor in the poverty of most Indians, it’s actually a fairly substantial economic barrier. Nonetheless, the allure of instantaneous and pervasive wireless communication seduced at least one of the Kerala fishermen – probably one of the more successful ones – and a handset made its way onto a dhow. (The GSM signal can reach as far as 25 km offshore.) And, when that handset made its way onto that dhow, something unexpected – yet perfectly predictable – happened. That fisherman made a call into shore. That first call might have been entirely innocuous; perhaps calling a relative, or a friend. And perhaps, during the course of that conversation, the fisherman learned that the market nearest the recipient of that call had no fish that day. So that fisherman set for that port, and made a good bounty on his catch.
Fishermen do not work in isolation; they form a community, and share a lot of their knowledge between them. So, in fairly short order, it would have become common knowledge that a mobile handset on a dhow was a potent combination – it could greatly increase a fisherman’s profits. Soon, even the lowliest of the fisherman had their own handsets, and – once they came into range of those ubiquitous GSM towers, called into port. The fisherman argued and bargained with the fish mongers in the markets onshore – who also realized that a mobile handset could lead to better profits – and, although each fisherman acted independently, created an arbitrage network of sorts. These days, if the catch is good, there’s enough fish in each of Kerala’s fish markets – but only just enough to ensure a good price at that market. The markets are satisfied, and so are the fishermen. Profits are up, for buyers and sellers – so much so that a mobile handset – which cost about a month’s profits for a fisherman – pays for itself in about two months.
Kerala is a fine example of the self-organizing human behaviors that emerge naturally when human beings are connected into far-flung networks, but it is far from the only one. Farmers in Kenya phone ahead to learn which markets are offering the best prices for onions and maize. Spice traders – again in Kerala – send texts back and forth as they bargain and trade their wares. This is all wholly new – and yet these are simply basic human cultural behaviors that have simply been amplified by the omnipresent network.
Two sides to the coin
I can see ecolocal's point. I'm not in disagreement.
There is a lot of good that can come about from the spread of info. But the host companies, isp's and phone companies ARE bowing down to the government with regard to privacy and the spread of certain info some may or may not agree with.
On the other hand we should use the hell out the internet while it is still a very open forum. It may or may not be this free and open forever.
So I say make the best of it while you can and instead of putting all your energy in looking and thinking about the negative, put your energy into making a positive change as long as possible.
Great work!
Hi Jennifer,
Thank you this wonderful piece. Please write more of them.
Yours,
Daniel
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
flaws can be fixed if you are aware of them
some people have both the ability to perceive flaws and fix them, others have the ability to point out the naked state of the emperor but very little in the way of tailoring skills while others are busy and talented seamstresses caught up in their work but have no marketing skills at all, Radical interdependence is making these parts work together, not just grooving on noise as if it was signal. In early eighties I participated in and managed many loosely structured public events and protests and we communicated more w/ eye contact and smiles a lot more information than anyone ever gets through a random text message. When we had to do something edgy to get the point across we had a group awareness of the environment and a solid group trust that prevented us from being loaded into paddy wagons at the end of the day. Paronoia is seeing an enemy where there isn't one. Trust is knowing who you can depend on when the unexpected happens. Interdependence is about trust. I like to know who I can trust and gain a great sense of satisfaction when someone feels they can trust me. Thanks for the edit earlier whoever that was, Deus ex Machina :-)
Its not like I have to be paid to be nice but maybe it would help<---laughing at myself...
sometimes it IS us versus them...
Hey, watch out for the falling piano.
available free for everyone
'..her Pan Mesa vision of a future in which fresh and whole locally grown foods are available free for everyone'
As a kid I used to wonder why fruit trees and soft fruit weren't grown in parks and everywhere for people to help themselves to - a selection of entheogens grown here and there would be nice too...
Brilliant!
Propaganda Anonymous Great great piece Jennifer. From the top to the bottom, so well done.
Twitter sounds extremely interesting, And I love the Burroughs essay excerpt. That exact passage you quoted from Burroughs I had once underlined when I wrote a paper about his cut-up method in college. haha
I remember cause he was talking about how our experience in the world is basically a cut-up of our attention, and so cut-up writing methods was one way of relating that phenomenon in the art of writing.....
Anyway, Thanks for this piece.
I'mma really have to check out the twitter thing.
Your expositions and examples were certified fresh.
PEACE
Prop
Trust VS. Paranoia
Propaganda Anonymous
My biological network of and fingernails nodes is a small network of intelligences, and I only have a certain amount of time and energy to contemplate and concentrate on shit,
i.e. breif interactions of time and space when seen through a time lens that creeps towards the abstract.
Meaning 'we'- I'll leave it up to you in private to identify or not with this next presented category of 'we'--- project possibilities like they were facts, and forget we even do that. It's like a cognitive black out on awareness.
People do that shit all the time, on just some plain old stupid shit. Etc, etc.
Knee-jerk reactions being seen as patterns
If people are mis-interpreting your message, modify the design but keep the signals clear.
Cliches suck, and cliched forms of expression are boring to me. That sometimes shows that you don't really have something to say, besides the basic biological urges in some mammals just to grunt and make noise, that maybe you should meditate on your words for awhile and come back with skills.
That's one thought that crosses my mind.
Another is to approach messages like those sometimes posted in these quasi-forums, is as if I was talking to the person like they were in front of me or on the phone.
AND
That's one reason why I like this piece is because that's a question it evokes.
Alright, some form of electronic telepathy is extrapolated from the Twitter technology. What does this mean?
(plain and simple for me. I see and feel this acceleration of networking technologies a lot these days. Fuck it's really a pretty damn big thing to have happened to us. And this acceleration birthed a wide lot of sub-cultures since "the 60's"
Even "the 60's" has been packaged and sold so many times it's very easy to see that it's seen as also another story. And the more that story lays claim at telling you everything about something felt by some many individuals, the more boring it becomes. That's why I listen to the old cats droppin knowledge that I can relate with. I think that vibe gets represented well by some older cats.
But acting from the grand narrative perspective about another time period, or any time period, arouses my skepticism.
My own questions that arise when reading this piece is in wondering if getting some tweats, (why birds?)
during some real banal shit is even necessary. Is this the 'type' of telepathy I want?
It seems like the telepathy being considered here is one that relies heavily on verbal descriptions.
And not a telepathy that comes about from intuitive body movements and voice.
Another thing that comes up for me is the thought that maybe this technology perhaps trips some invisible switch, a heretofo 'law' of physics. Where something about the technology that has produced 'Twitter' has fliped that psychic switch. What's the validity in a possibility like this? Can it be seen as a plausible psycho-social phenomenon?
It is interesting how Jennifer is writing about off-line groups of people meeting because of on-line activity.
I know in my life that the internet has made my travels, which to meeting many cool people some of which will def be in my life for awhile, and some will not.
Personally I think there is a way for people to use the internet in ways that lead to greater things happening off-line.
If a technology, that utilizes some of the same things 'Twitter' does, then what's to stop the coming of new social interactions? Some that may actually make people smarter.
This seems to be an emergent tendency in human organizing and relating. Or, at least, the ends don't appear to be as life or death.
If technologies like Twitter has the capacity for large groups of people to come together when big shit happens, like Hurricanes, like Wars.
And when the small but significant stuff arises in communities like business onwers who do shit they wouldn't do to individuals to their face, yet do it behind the guise of real estate development board, then I think technologies like Twitter will help get the message out there.
Will it get done? Who the fuck knows? Really you got the answer for us? Alright then.
I still see lots of stuff that goes on in town life America, and prolly goes the same in your country country too, that doesn't get talked about.
And when shit finally does come out, it usually involves alcohol and stupidity.
and stupidity....
Twitter seems like a very new inovation in the social sphere. Have never seen anything like it.
This shit is breaking news. point blank
Kudos for that.
To compare this immediately to other past technologies, like you are doing Ecolocal, doesn't get me thinking at all that you may be correct.
It sounds like assertion and projection for you to determine that this technology is ultimately good or ultimately bad for society-as-a-whole.
What do you think?
How, exactly is this the same old 'Big Brother' scenario of oppression?
From you're posts on the site you make it sound like this fucked up shit is happening everywhere, all the time, and will continue to happen with every new thing that comes along.
In that case, do you just like reading shit you know you are not going to agree with and then shit on the stuff they are writing.
This blog space allows many people to interact with the actual writer of their pieces of journalism in real time.
In no other medium do you get that.
These pieces aren't just passing thoughts and reactions bubbling up while reading shit. The things talked about in articles like this usually require some time to digest. If a dialogue, that goes beyond just bullshiting and shit-talking, can really arise, then it would be just prejudiced to take an immediate stance on something very new.
Stuff brought up in these articles require the proper respect of at least considering what the a writer is trying to get across in so that when you find yourself compelled to express why you think the writer's ideas are 'so this' or 'so that,' then I say you are failing to utilize a very neccesary tool in logic.
Consideration. Failing to consider the possibility of another's outlook as having vital shades of truth I see as a detriment.
But whatever, even me dedicating that much space towards a hater takes away from further builin on this topic.
Jen I think you are on to something.
Looking forward to more pieces
Great advice, PA!
that being said...
various forms of multi-channel messaging have been available since the drum was invented and as with any communications tech the application itself is secondary to the community in terms of its usefulness. When i was at MCI prior to the worldcom merger we developed some of our own messaging protocols and patched them into the various devices we were so fond of fetishizing and mutating and went about our business often patched in like the borg collective but novelty would wear thin when the constant distractions had us backgrounding the task at hand passing into autopiliot land. For us the ubiquity of the network was a given. eight windows of chat and a headset with Quake on the lan in corner of the screen, information overload doesn't even begin to describe it...
Twitter is a tool, but its also a product and just like Second Life eventually grabbed the major share of the virtual world market, pushing other possibly better applications in that genre to the peripherary, so has Twitter reached a critical mass of market saturation that gives it a certain amount of clout that renders entry into the market by other cloud-like messaging but more secure or otherwise better organized services difficult. I used twitter for a few weeks not long after its launch, but alas I am much too long winded to get much satisfaction from it and it did little but aggravate my moderate to severe attention deficit. I prefer chatting with my wife, my cat, or my pepper plants these days or more involved discussions in more serious venues like this one.
'Throw some more mud
'Throw some more mud around, it makes for excellent discussion, just like the rest of the net!'
He must be a Discordian.
'Discordianism recognizes chaos, discord, and dissent as valid and desirable qualities, in contrast with most religions, which idealize harmony and order'
Reflections upon this medium of communication
Propaganda Anonymous
I've been on random chat sites in the past and said stupid shit under different cyber-guises. Just saying shit that I didn't normally say in face to face interactions with people. It was like a release valve.
For me, that has changed a bit over these past few years.
And I think this medium has changed a bit too.
I first started really getting into cool cyber exchanges and sometimes flares at the Disinfo.com website around 9 or 10 years ago. At that time, their email service was free and protected And they had 'member' chat rooms filled with bunches of smart people.
The vibe could get real sarcastic, sometimes venomous, but definitely funny and amusing. But that placed changed a bit, and the email wasn't free anymore And I stopped going into the chat areas.
A few years ago I saw that Robert Anton Wilson and some of his friends were starting a website where Bob would give 8 to 12 week on-line courses about some of his books and ideas.
This was such an amazing place for me discover. I'd been studying RAW's works on my own for years. A lone raver researching and re-reading and re-re-reading. So then finally, there was a place that went deeper into his philosophical explorations. There were general forum areas, and forums related to the particular classes.
Bob was basically an anarchist (in my estimation), and the striving towards a liberation of thoughts and words seemed always encouraged.
There was ONE rule, and that rule still remains, have some COURTESY towards those others sharing cyber-space with you.
Don't be a dick.
And for a bunch of stubborn and smart and funny individuals this rule was maintained most of the time. And you know what happened? People started really buildin with each other. Pissing contests of who's theory is the best fell away.
Occasionally someone would go on the forums and start spewing heaps of verbage all over the place, but no one bit the bait. Cause that shit is stupid. For real Save that type of bullshit for the bar man.
Now I find myself on Realitysandwich a lot. I see this place as an extension of the other sites like Disinfo and Maybelogic. And what is so cool about this place is that there are some really great writers among us. And they are accessible in these forums. And I can say that ALL of the contributors I have met who write for this site ARE cool people. I.E. Not Assholes.
There are enough Assholes in this world And one can still be provocative in thought and constructively critical without coming across as an asshole.
I very much agree with Robert Anton Wilson that awareness of the way we use words is crucial to all of this stuff. A lot of time we may word our thoughts in such a way that makes it seem like we're assholes, but that's not the intention. In times like that, it's good to have others put a mirror to your face and tell you to look.
In terms of anonymity of person in these forums, I notice a few things. There are those who contribute pieces to the site. They usually have their pictures of themselves and some personal info about them in their bio pages. That's a risk guys. That's people putting themselves out there and saying, "Hi"
That's the Peace sign and not the middle finger.
And another grouping of individuals on this site are those who respond to the posts. Within these groups are those who tell others about themselves through links or bio's or just in their responses. And some just chime in from time to time from the peanut gallery. All of which is fine by me. But just keep in mind that there are real people on this site doing some real shit.
And don't be a dick.
Anyway, Jen's article Rocks!
2 degrees
glitch
'I just wanted to see just
'I just wanted to see just what people think "online telepathy" means to them.'
I think people gravitate to the websites and online communities that they resonate with, and this resonance or empathy is the basis of a kind of pychic connection, but I wouldn't really call it telepathy, more like a heightened synchronisity.
I sometimes think I get too caught up in the internet though, there are often very depresssing things to learn about. I think a retreat from the collective mind is necessary sometimes.
"oh the snot has caked against my pants, it has turned to crystal"
lucky you
online telepathy
Propaganda Anonymous Cool cool... See, there is still a distinction in 'real' time talk and blog-forum-post talk. And that is something I also need to remind myself. cj if something you may have said just reminded me of that, gracias. much thanks man. This shit is different.
CJ, I personally right now think you're great Your posts about your life experiences holds weight man. I respect that. Right now I'm seeing a difference between 'real time' 'cyber-time' conversations. So I'm personally inclined at the moment just to say Fuck It great article again.
cjmoore I am enjoying most of your comments
ecolocal, from this perspective it looks like you spit sarcastic knee-jerk reactions as your opening statement to nearly all the peices written here. This leads me to wonder if you selectively utilize logic to fit your emotional reactions. But if that's the way this story goes, so be it.,
We're juggling metaphors
filled differently for comfort
some filled with liquid some with gas
some are filled with shit
and some still work.
Still though, I think that this article posted is on to something, I thought about how social activist organizations can use this.
The article speaks about it, and I am interested in exploring this part more.
Browsing google this site popped up imaging one way that Twitter can be used in activism. the link:
rofl
everyone vibrates at a different frequency
More Than Meets the Eye
Nice one (or 2 or 3) Prop! and Jennifer!
Generally I feel forums, chats, email, twitter, social networks, RS, blogs, flickr, youtube, and so forth represent a sometimes simple, sometimes outrageous, often awesome outpouring of communication, connection, emotion and revelation taking form and voice in myriad dimensions.
If you consider the romantic notions of conversation, for example philosophical meet-ups in Parisian cafes 100 years ago, or revolutionary conspiracies in English pubs, or lazy sunday wanderings in Central Park - the residue from these sometimes bygone eras is present in the present, if only for a moment, if only a small glance.
The big difference of course, now, is the scale of things. There are literaly millions of people simultaneously consuming and sharing information, knowledge and wisdom.
All this commotion inspires many and fires things up. But I do somtimes get the impression that, as The Conversation heats up, as more and more is revealed, shared, said, explained, put forth and so forth - some people simply "pop" - "It Just Can't Be This Way!!" - so they feel and say.
But it can be every way.
My feeling is that from email to tweets, we are writing code and frantically upgrading, remixing, connecting and reconnecting ourselves and each other to ourselves and each other.
It might be something like What You See Is What You Get - but, there is certainly More Than Meets the Eye.
WOW! and not the game
Singin'
Just another bird on a branch over here ;)
twitter.com/morganmaher
far out ..
hey jp,
don't you know that all the BEST music was from the '60s???
ha!
xo
"Why search for "flaws"
"Why search for "flaws" that will effect the future that we may or may not have when we can live in the here and now of a gigantic potluck meal, to which all are invited?"
Maybe because that potluck meal won't last forever. They never do. The potluck meal will end, and people will be hungry again and there won't be a potluck. Things stop, things run out, things end. It's called "planning for the future."
You used Katrina as an example; bad move, because Katrina happened precisely because nobody was searching for the flaws in the levee system; they were all too entranced by the potluck party in the streets to actually care about how bad a job the Bush Admin and the Army Corps of Engineers was doing at protecting the city, and too drunk to take note of the fact that the city was incapable of evacuating poor people on short notice.
And I live in New Orleans, right now, so don't start. You don't know how it is down here.
Twitter is a fad, and I don't think it will bring people together any more than LiveJournal, or Delphi Forums, or MySpace, or Facebook, or any of the rest of them.
As a matter of fact, Twitter is more meaningless, because of the word limitation. Ideas can't be explored. It's soundbytes, blurbs, advertising for the individual ego at its most bellybutton-gazingest, 15 nanoseconds of fame.
In other words, I don't see "a speeding up of the rate of exchange between our thoughts and desires on the so-called inside and that which actually happens on the so-called outside" as anything more than a symptom of DISconnection, not REconnection.
It's ADHD, is what it is. A reflection of a generation addled by video games, big-screen HDTV, and instant access to fake information on the Internet.
(Yeah, I said generation. If you want to bash the baby boomers, sweetheart, be forewarned; we bite back, hard, because we actually read the books you only Googled the Wikipedia entries on.)
Or it could be worse; having hyperspeed, disconnected thoughts on a random variety of subjects, and being unable to express them except in little short near-nonsensical blasts, is one of the primary symptoms of schizophrenia.
next level?
next level?
actually chaff tastes like crap...
plus it googles welll..,
I wrote a paper on this.
I wrote a paper on this for a book. Don't have the time but to point to it.
...the "anti-cluetrain
...the "anti-cluetrain trolls": "They're using social media to bash social media. In doing so, they hypocritically contradict themselves. Their actions prove that they really do believe in social media. They're just as addicted as everyone else. A deep sense of shame and self-loathing is what motivates them. Hating their attraction to blogs, and despising the free expression they find on blogs, these simpletons attempt to post mocking comments on other people's blogs.
Wow. As a "next level internet revolutionary" it seems that you have decided that I need "re-education" because my ideas don't conform to the Glorious Five Milliseconds To Enlightenment Through Twitter Plan.
If you want to go by LiveJournal and look me up under "happydog," you will feel free to do so. I will find it interesting if you find any shame or self-loathing.
My comments come from a concern that social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, which offer no opportunity for significant idea exchange and no true capability to discuss ideas, simply play into the attention deficit disorder that our society suffers from.
At least on LiveJournal people can write about issues extensively and discuss issues extensively, as here. I don't regard that as "social networking," but as writing - journaling and essay writing.
The exchange of ideas is one thing, but the mindless empty chatter of self-created advertising blurbs that only advertise oneself is quite another. Twitter, and most other "social networking" sites, are all about I, me, mine, egomania and self-promotion.
Quite a revelation to self-absorbed twentysomethings, but to those who have truly attained adulthood, something is lacking. Perhaps real, human, face to face contact? Everyone is dazzling on a cell phone.
you say you want a revolution
Any revolution must begin and be driven by a revolution in consciousness. Otherwise it's just a rebellion.
I don't perceive the JP generation rebelling against their hippie foremothers nor do I see them holding back due to conflict with authoritative belief systems. Posing as someone older and wiser telling someone they are not a True revolutionary because you don't like the way they perceive the world changing is a Big Brother attitude of the worst kind.
If you don't like New Orleans, don't stay there. If you don't like the idea exchange in RS, go someplace else. If you do, become a part of the revolution. Ditto twitter. A lot can be said in 140 characters. It's the thought that counts, not the volume or quantity of words.
Enuf said!
Furthermore, Twitter is a new form of idea exchange, similar to telepathy in that it takes you into another person's thought process, especially after you follow them for a while and they follow you and you get to know each other and follow others in common too. It becomes an interactive storybook of poetry and parables and random thoughts that are not limited by space and time proximity. Technology doesn't replace our intuitive and communicative powers but it does reflect them and magnify them.
You could say that books are bad because people reading them are looking down their noses and missing the real world going by as they sit there on their asses. If so, put the book down and pick up a cell phone with text messaging and get out into the real world, and twitter about it (verb: what are you doing?).
@wizmical
random thoughts
p.s The seemingly "random thoughts" that flow thru one's twitter timeline often turn out to be surprisingly synchronistic.
Like the other day when I twittered about a chipmunk I smushed unintentionally, and Eve from Ohio on vacation on a beach somewhere probably in Michigan remarked that her son had just seen a squirrel run over by a car. There's more to it than that, and it sounds better in 140 character soundbites, and I still don't quite know the significance of it or why this morning a cat looked up at me looking down from the second floor balcony with a chipmunk in its mouth ... oh nevermind.
"Accelerating to zero point, Twitter's pace and person-to-person repartee suits me best of all the social media" - @eve11
It's like jazz, if you don't get it, who can explain it? You'll know if you like it, or not.
@wizmical
jazz is like jazz,
after the downthrown downtone of the upbeat memestream in the postbop record shop a nonstop overlord preachoff for the backstreet levelbump to trolled out uberchump that gets lumped in with the upscale detail of the photshopped female preakster unwording weirdly wired communiques to the freyday heyday of the way frayed relay much to the peepsters dismay. Thas how we ride in the no play ..............................zone.
entrees on the table.
if I google my real name, I'll never find myself...
I'll be in the attic working on my diary...
Calling anyone you disagree with a troll is just plain childish. I thought labels were for jars, not people.
TRUCE! No more flame war!
You're bright and young and I'm old and cranky and perhaps although I tend toward the bleeding edge, I'm oddly set in my ways on some things. At least my cat likes me and the neighborhood deer don't run from me until I'm right up next to them, so my "vibe" couldn't be all that harsh. Here's a peace offering, some uneditted not very well arranged pics that aren't my more recent work but there's a few nice ones to be seen if you graze on them a bit!
http://pictures.aol.com/galleries/gemlure
Not so black and white
thanks
patterns in the snow...
also send me link about those DIY offramps
Emerging Global Brain or Monkey Mind?
JP: I have previously argued that our emerging telecommunications networks are reflecting, stimulating and supporting our species evolution to higher levels of consciousness. Of course, most people will use these new tools to support their ego and shadow. At first, only the mystics and artists will push the envelope, showing us the way.
My response to the TWITTER = TELEPATHY essay follows the same "light and shadow" challenge. This is a technology that allows us to be talking and listening all the time. At its spiritual worst, it takes us into the hall of mirrors of the never-ceasing chatter of the "monkey mind." Taking us away from the present moment into the future or the past.
At its spiritual best, it offers us an opportunity to build new neural nets of shared awareness -- of our social space, of our dreams, and of the flesh and blood, leaves, water and soil, deeply present, natural world. Using Twitter to become more present is indeed a challenge. Its like the story from the Vedas of the two birds on the tree, one is constantly attracted by new stimuli, the other "watches and eats not." We need to develop this dual consciousness as we become evermore connected, as we tune to the voices of all beings, calling out their songs of Aliveness.
As I wrote in the "sixth level" essay:
Our work is to "repair the net" (tikkun olam), assisting the Beloved in communicating (through us) with itself. With proper conscious awareness, Twitter, blogs and mobile social nets are powerful tools of moving outside of our ego structure into the NOW, into true open friendship. Without awareness, they are simply more distractions.
you just reminded me of something Douglas Adams wrote
I do know some rather extremely trollish techniques, but...
nope, I'm not that clown, but...
The Captain
“You retiring Cap?” I said.
“Had enough Pete,” he replied.
I then walked up to him and we embraced. “I love you, Cap.” I said.
“I love you too, Pete.”
I gave him a sentiment of good luck as he turned to walk out the door. I then turned to put his equipment away on the shelf that is storage for training gear and his old fire helmet sat looking at me. I smiled remembering all we did together in the ghetto of Cincinnati, a place called Over-The-Rhine, where we rode together for five years on Engine 5.
I arrived at Engine 5 about the time his brother, who was a Cincinnati Police Officer, was shot and killed. The Captain was on duty that night and Engine 5 was disregarded from going to the scene where his brother laid dying. He always was a bit timid after that about the safety of his men. He even had bullet proof vests issued to us for any shooting incidents.
I went through a lot with him --- Riots, shootings, stabbings, fires, rapes, overdoses… you name it we saw it. Kind of like a been there done that sort of thing mentioned above. I don’t think we ever worked a night sleeping in at the firehouse. Over-The Rhine was a crazy place. After the riots I started walking the streets trying to heal the community – I loved it. I began petitioning the people trying to get services and wages up to par. I began to know many of the players, pimps, reverends, jokers, dealers, and business owners. I would even go back and interview shooting victims to find out why they were shot. I’d tape them and then log it all in and then give to people that were trying to study how to make the place a better and safer place to live.
Boy I could really tell you all about it, Over-The-Rhine, a place where you have neighborhoods that are called Hell Town, Back Street, Four Corners, Smoke House, Down The Way, Top Of The Vine, and Bottom Of The Vine. The things I used to do with the people in the neighborhood would drive my Captain Crazy. He would always say that I was going to get one of us killed. I would just tell him not to worry about it and that people were being help. He was all about his men. I was all about empowering people. The Captain and I butted heads a lot but we liked each other.
One day I was asked to help with a medical facility, and so I told them that we would all meet in the the front of the firehouse the next week to kick it off. Well they all came, balloons, clowns, jugglers, artist, drummer boys playing on plastic buckets, someone playing his trumpet, and lots and lots of people from the neighborhood. When I opened that gate to the firehouse the Captain was furious. I didn’t ask him first and he didn’t want any attention to the firehouse. I laughed my ass off. But he was not at all amused. I told him to calm down and it’s all about the people and he told him to pack my gear. I had to find another firehouse. And so I did.
But anyway, I grabbed his helmet off that shelf, today, that beat up dirty old thing that I followed for five years through hell and high water through the poorest neighborhood in America. I wrote a good note to my Captain who I’ll always love and stuck it in the helmet right between the smoke stained stickers of the American Flag and the #61 (in Memorial of Oscar Armstrong -- a Firefighter killed in the line of duty). Just a note to remind him of all the things we did and saw together and how I was never bitter that he told me to leave. On my way home I stopped by his home and handed it to his son.
I never said a bad thing about my Captain (he was a baby boomer) and I (As a gereation X'er) don’t believe I ever will. It's just all destiny in the end and without anyone biting anyone in the ass. I truly hated to see him go today. I really loved that guy.
Every time I hear this song I think of him...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D70wNuP62
Boy, I really do like this site too. The people here are open to truth. And that's a good thing.
Mistakes are sometimes nobody's fault
But no matter what happens or whatever site we may log onto, sometimes we feel that we owe because of whatever it is that we feel, well, it just happens to be that way, Even it may be some little knowlege recieved, we feel we owe... more often then not this tends to be directed towards ourselves. Like we owe ourselves this but that is usually because we always end up thinking about our own survival. Sometimes it's really a nothing less and nothing more sort of thing.
Sometimes we're right and sometimes we're not but then again sometimes we're right or wrong again...
Keep up the good work everyone... Like Jennifer Palmer who has it right too... the broadcaster and reciever are one! Hell, who isn't part of the main? Even in this information age where we struggle for the answer of who are we to say what is frivolous--and, anyway, what's wrong with frivolity or even ego-driven social networking? ?
It takes two slices of bread to make a sandwich. In-between the slices are a whole lot of what makes us say mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm that's good. Even though we usually are the ones making our own sandwiches we must always remember that no man or women ever does it alone.
"Maybe that's what's wrong with it all." Whoever came up with that saying must have been all right too. What is your it? I do like pickles on my hamburger. My Captian, we'll he didn't -- he liked mustard and cheese.
Whatever... I still always had to be me. He had to be my Captian... sometimes you just have to allow the leader to take you where you need to go. Sometimes you just need to lay low.
Your ego owes no one and graditude is always the answer to keeping it all in check.
Thank you... try saying that at least 9 times tomorrow... Who can do it? You know I'm not even sure if I said it once today. Well maybe, in a way, once. I'll make it 9 tomorrow.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D70wNuP62Oc
I think I'll start with the Great Spirit when I wake up and end there when I go to bed.
Yawn ...