Social Media and the Yamas

Alternatively titled: How Twitter Taught Me to Be More Concise; Except, Not Really

I don’t write a whole lot of any how-to posts or “we should blog like this” posts or “I like Twitterers who Tweet about X, Y, or Z topics best,” because frankly?  It’s. The. Freaking. Internet.  Say what you gotta say (you know, that’s truthful and respectful and all, because general ethical practices like “be nice to people” should still exist on the Internet), and the people that like you will stick around and the ones that don’t can unsubscribe, ignore, or just you know, not read.

But I do have one thing that I’ve noticed myself starting to think about as kind of a challenge in learning to write a little more concisely.  That being said, let’s not judge the clarity or brevity of my posts (particularly this one); I’m just saying it’s a thought I had.  Not necessarily my How to Blog Manifesto.

Moving on

Ok, so raise your hand if you’re a Twitter user and you’ve ever had to edit one of your tweets down from like, 150, oklet’sbehonest 200+ characters to 140 or less.  You change words, use contractions, omit the unnecessary.  At least, that’s how I do it, because frankly, I hate tweets that look like a 16 year-olds text message conversation, so if I can’t say it and spell the word out correctly, then I’m saying too much (some exceptions like “incl” and “approx” are fine (to me) because they’re generally acceptable abbreviations, acronyms like WTF, FTW, etc., are fine too; things like “ur” and “l8er” and “c u” should be banned from the world, IMHO).

I digress

And again, those are my rules.  You do what you want.  If you tweet like a teenager, I’m probably not following you anyway.

So, I’ve noticed that in learning to keep my Twitter thoughts under 140 characters, I’m learning to say just what I mean.  No filler, no extra.

Twitter and Satya

I realize I’m taking this way out of context, but I kind of think this is like the digital version and translation of the yama, satya.  Satya is “right speak,” or “truthfulness,” depending on whose translation you check out, but it essentially means that you ‘mean what you say, and say what you mean.’  You don’t rely on filler conversation to fill awkward silences; you don’t gossip and chatter to look or sound cool, especially when you don’t even mean it.  You simply say what you mean, and mean what you say.

It’s a challenge, for a talkychatty person like myself, but I try to keep this in mind throughout my waking moments.  It’s been noted that I’m totally down with comfortable silences, but it’s also largely because I’d rather shut up than talk about nothing; I try to make my words count – which is challenging when you LIKE to use a lot of words.

Twitter kind of requires that we get to the point.  For any writer who also values using full words (or otherwise noted acceptable acronyms and abbreviations), we have to learn to cut out the clutter and simply say what’s important.

I kindofsortofsometimesbutdon’tjudgemewhenIdon’tok? do the same thing with blog posts.  I won’t publish anything over a personally-determined-as-acceptable-for-myself number of words unless it’s something like this where I bring together a bunch of other people’s responses and ideas.  I absolutely am aware that I can be wordy, and I get that we’re busy.  Bloggers/digital natives are multi-taskers who are reading blogs, working, tweeting, daydreaming, eating breakfast, watching TV, writing blogs/articles, GChatting, listening to iTunes on shuffle because you don’t have the time to pick a playlist, much less create one, running to meetings, and well, you know – living.

I actually even thought about going through this post and crossing out all the things that could have clearly been omitted and still gotten the point across.  I might still do that.  (Update: Clearly, I didn’t do that.) And no, I’m not deleting this sentence simply as proof that this is not a “rule” or a “thing” or a “guideline” and that I can break my own “rules” and “things” and fake guidelines all I want because this is my blog and you should break the “rules” and “things” and “guidelines” on your own blogs and Twitter because you can and who’s really an authority because we all have different voices and objectives and stuff and things and maybe we just like writing for the sake of writing and don’t need “rules” and “things” and “guidelines”.

Again, IMHO.

So, this isn’t advice or a rule of any kind.  I’m just saying.  Twitter inspires/forces/teaches satya.  Except for that last paragraph where I clearly said way more than I needed to get my point across.  See?  I’m not an authority on blog-writing.

I just like finding yoga in my everyday life.

This post was really a stretch, wasn’t it?

Wine and cookies for anyone still here.

I’m really done now.

The whole point of this post was just defeated wasn’t it?

(I guess an unintentional point of this post was mostly to express that I’m not an authority on how to blog/tweet.  And you might not be either.  But you might be.  So that’s cool for you.)

The fact that I just explained that completely negates the whole thing.  Like, THE WHOLE THING.

This is what 36k feet does to you (I wrote this while on a flight).  I’m all vata and my root chakra is unstable.

Really?  Am I not done yet?

This is so never getting published.

Except if it is, in which case I’m sorry.

Satya.

Tagged as: Blogging, Twitter, yamas, Yoga