The Gift of the Shared Item

I recall an awkward theater games exercise back in my college days: one prop, a book; and one line, “I give you this book.” Then in randomly generated pairs this micro-play would get recast dozens of times.

In many ways the “shared item” practice of the social media space reminds me of that game, except the implied line is “I give you this link.” And as the links gets cast out into the various platforms like twitter, reader, friendfeed and elsewhere, others get the chance to join in a content feast.

While sometimes people ask us to share items within our networks we are not all that jazzed about and other times a the content seems pretty lean and we reach for content to share that we normally wouldn’t; sometimes it all fits together…

In these cases we share the items with enthusiasm, excited by the value we have discovered. As I look back at hundreds upon hundreds of items I’ve shared over the past year it makes me realize that certain sources have greatly enriched my life (and I hope by extension yours as well).

My top five sources for shared items in 2009:

Shrink Rap

The Legacy of Henry Corbin

Cultural Mythology: American Notions of Self and Country

Jung at Heart

Slow Muse

Where are your favorite resources?