New Year's resolution: not going to tweet

With the ending of one year and the beginning of another come two time honored traditions: the look back (remembering and reassessing moments great and minor but noteworthy) and the look ahead, and with it, the making of New Year’s resolutions.

Last year, 2009, brought a new word to our common vocabulary — tweet. Well, actually the word is not new — it has a new definition, as in “to tweet,†verb, meaning to send short text messages out into cyberspace via the microblogging service, Twitter. It’s a whole new form of shorthand communication. Twitter, Inc. was founded in 2007, but its visibility and popularity has soared and in February 2009 it was ranked the third most used social network.

Those of us still struggling to get up to speed with Facebook and iChat have once again been left in the dust. Tweeting is a form of communication that is sent to your entire cyber network, so if, for instance, you want to tell the world that you just finished lunch and are about to take a nap — perfect little tweet.

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Twitter — I love and loathe the word, and its implications. It’s the perfect onomatopoeia. Jack Dorsey, chairman of Twitter, Inc., is quoted on Wikipedia, saying, “We wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket.... So, we looked in the dictionary and we came across the word ‘twitter,’ and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information.’†It is so apt.

It may be a younger generation’s preferred form of communication and it’s probably perfect for what it is — but I would draw the line at using it for real communication.

Communication such as expressions of condolence on an untimely death, for example. After actress Brittany Murphy died at the too young age of 32 last Dec. 20, her colleague, actor Ashton Kutcher, tweeted his condolences.

I have friends who believe people should still write thank-you notes — on paper. Doesn’t someone’s death merit at least that?

Thus, my first New Year’s resolution: I’m not going to tweet. And I’m not going to blog. I still believe in first and final drafts and editors — but, I am going to write a column for this paper.

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Recently, I was reading an obituary in this newspaper of an 83-year-old woman who had been a lifelong resident of the Northwest Corner and a member of the first graduating class of Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The obituary went on to note that she had, in her lifetime, been employed doing domestic chores for several area families, took in extra ironing and laundry, loved her grandchildren, took great pleasure in the holidays and family gatherings and found happiness drawing, sewing and keeping her garden “just right.â€

I was struck with a profound sense of peace as I read about her. These images conjured up a life beautiful in its simplicity. In an era when many of us feel like the hamster on the exercise wheel, with little time to catch our collective breath as we scoot from one activity to the next, a world where one can take refuge in drawing, sewing and gardening and when family is the focus of a person’s life seems ideal.  I’m making some grand assumptions, but it seems as though this woman may have found the real beauty that so many of us spend a lot of time, energy and money in pursuit of.

Now, I’m not supposing she didn’t have hardship, difficulties or strife in her life — those things are part of the territory. But it is what one does with them and how one reacts to them that ultimately defines the experience, not the event itself.

Reading the description of a person’s life, written lovingly by family members or friends, can often give such inspiration as I found in the contemplation of this woman’s life through her obituary. I wish I had known her, though in a way I feel I’ve understood her without that privilege.

However, had I actually known her, rest assured there would not have been any condolence tweets from me associated with her passing, but rather, yes, an actual hand-written note.

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As an avid reader of The New York Times, weekly gossip magazines and of course, The Lakeville Journal (which I read in its entirety every week in my role as copy editor), I’m fascinated by the things people do and by what motivates them. Current events on the world stage and in our own backyard are equally interesting to this writer. Of course, it is often that which might be branded bad behavior that is most fascinating.

But the human condition goes beyond tabloid headlines and there are matters of the heart that also fascinate: how we deal with the loss of a loved one, the meaning of a good life, time management, family function and dysfunction. From the cosmic to the minuscule, life is continually interesting.

So look here for social commentary — sometimes edifying, sometimes esoteric and sometimes, I hope, simply entertaining.

Tara Kelly, copy editor at The Lakeville Journal, is an avid follower of social trends. She may be reached by e-mail at tarak@lakevillejournal.com.