Coming to terms with the nature of the social web can be difficult. Many that get in with some level of passion soon fizzle out. What I notice is that many others fall back into the familiar networks of their friends and relations. That being said, the most interesting social media plays I’ve been involved in had nothing to do with pre-existing relationships. They were spontaneous and unpredictable.
My take away: social media is about engagement with the immediate. We can’t expect any investment with those of this moment to endure into future moments. It might, but that’s not a condition determining the creative value of what transpires. And our investment is not depleted by what may be a random chance encounter. Each act shapes our practice, our posture so to speak.
So the question remains, how to we continue to position ourselves in the swift moving waters?
What I’m most interested in, that’s the road that leads to the most meaningful interactions with others in this space.
I’m hitting upon this theme again because all the posturing in this space about “making it about the audience” is in my mind only a useful for those whose main interest is empowering audience. It just isn’t enough if it isn’t enough (pardon the redundancy). And it leads to so much banter in the social media space about “making it about you” that it feels like breathing air that is thin on oxygen…or worse, polluted with gasoline fumes.
See, if you are making it about me, by telling me to make it about them, then we have no terra firma. Nothing to break bread over. Nothing to base our shared journey on. It’s like a dream of bouncing around like a ping pong ball in the clouds.
Now, it’s been my experience of late that drilling deep into my interests has served up the community I was blindly seeking.
Passion generated by interest is contagious.
I prefer to walk in this way, firmly grounded, breathing in deep breaths of fresh air, sharing the meaningful stones that line my route (even if it means walking all the way to Cleveland…
Really folks, what’s the rush?
Thanks to some sage advice from many of the pro practitioners I’ve been fortunate to study, it’s been clear to me since entering this space that the best way to learn is to dive right in.
Recently I’ve initiated #dreamlog, a hashtag that curates/filters dreams I’m discovering through twitter search. Credit needs to go to @zachbraiker who asked me “how is the collective unconscious getting expressed on Twitter?” and “what’s the symbolic significance of the hashtag?” I didn’t really have an answer but instead set off to find one. #dreamlog is my answer.
Thousands of dreams are contributed into the public reservoir of data each day. I do not know if anyone else currently “tagging” what they find and using the RT protocol in the manner I’ve developed with #dreamlog or not. But I know this, it works. And as the stream builds, others are adding their dreams to the stream as well.
This activity is simultaneously intensely selfish and surprisingly useful for others.
It’s selfish because the opportunity to engage this data with such ease gives me an incredible opportunity to engage the contents of the unconscious. Jungian analysis places an emphasis on dream interpretation, and the hundreds of dreams I process through twitter search each day, as well as the wide array of emotional responses that people share regarding their dream experiences, provides stream of research that is nothing short of a digital dream practicum. As I continue my journey to become a Jungian analyst this practice of sifting the search data, valuing the images, and determining what to share, all this helps me to develop my feel for the language of dreams.
But as I’m digging into that which is most useful to myself it becomes evident that it has value for others as well. #dreamlog has stimulated a Renaissance in my engagement with new folks on twitter that reminds me of my first few months in the space. It’s opened up new relationships, deepened the level of interaction, and led to an increase of back channel interactions. A surprising number of folks have taken the time to let me know they enjoy it.
I think it’s important to point out the bi-polar aspect of successful actions in this space. Many toot the horn of being useful to others, the altruistic side of the equation, while downplaying the more selfish benefits. Be it new business opportunities, increased revenue streams, or just good old-fashioned learning, it’s crucial to find what you need in this space as well. Otherwise you’ll never have the energy to sustain a consistent practice.
Time to go see what else has been delivered to the dream castle I call twitter search…
Having worked with the #dreamlog all week, certain dream motifs are now appearing quite regularly. The value of searching by motif was not immediately evident to me. But now that I’ve been scanning tens of thousands of tweets the patterns are appearing. These searches are a good start when trying to cut the data by motif.
Dream Zombie
Dream Teeth
Dream Horse
Dream Flying
The parental motifs are interesting, but these “leak” all sorts of bitterness and animosity. And then there are a ton of sexual motifs (Freud would be pleased). I’ll ask you to wade into these waters on your own so as not to offend by the less then tactful and often outrageous search results that come back. Interestingly, Dream Car and Dream House are less productive searches. While very common dream motifs, these searches yield many results speaking to desired items and not dream narrative or experience.
As a followup to yesterday’s post on extraneous findings concerning collective attitudes toward the psyche and dreaming which are dismissive, the following searches are useful.
Dream Crazy
Dream Wierd
Dream Strange
Dream Bizarre
Dream Bad
Dream Horrific
Dream Worst
Dream Craziest
And whose the celebrity most active in the collective unconscious as it’s appearing through this cut of the data? The winner is: Dream Michael Jackson.
PS: And if this isn’t an example of the “evil” of mass tweet marketing, what is? Dream Disney Ship
Wealthy Family to the Cliff
Lifestream Digest for January 11th