Friday, March 12, 2010

Twitter and the Garden of Forking Paths

First time using Twitter, I was wondering why people could be so addicted to the status-update site such as this one, which limits your message to the world in 140 characters. Later I figured out it was the game nature of this website that makes it so special and addictive. You have to follow the rules: type whatever you want to say in less than 140 characters and that only, otherwise it won’t be posted. This rule brings in the most randomness, or a little sneak peek into people’s lives. Through my experience with Twitter, I can say that most people use the site as their emotion outlet, happy, sad or bored. These tweets, which can be categorized as chaotic time, reflect their emotions about the events that already happened, are happening and will happen. People get into an exciting situation, they tweet “Yay”, and horrible situation brings out “F****”. Those are the most two common words that I’ve seen on Twitter. Teleological time happens less often just because people find it boring just to post the regular events of their lives in order for others to see. I haven’t seen stellar time either, or it’s because to obtain a perception whether stellar time is happening, I would have to travel the road of tweets, pick up the seemingly irrelevant ones and connect the dots afterwards.

The Garden of Forking Paths gives me a nagging feeling. I imagine there are parallel universes in addition to the one that I’m in, with parallel selves of me living in it but walking different paths than mine. That thought is disturbing, in a way, if I ever find that I’m the enemy to my dearest friends in other universes. It’s like when I’m having a dream that I cannot control, no matter how much I want to. Thinking about different universes makes me feel like I’m waking up in great doubt about whatever decisions I have made in life. There are also events, in which I strongly believed in one way and after so many years accidentally there is a light shed upon the matter which shows me a whole different side of the story and tells me the path I took wasn’t what I thought it was.

However, I told myself that the path is what I have chosen, and there should be no regrets. The maze consists of many exits, and there’s no exit that I “must” reach. Whatever exit I reach, I will be glad that I have exited the maze that is my life, with grace.

To quote my favorite hip hop Korean band Epik High:

Three blind mice as we're lost in the maze route, lookin' for the easiest possible way out.
Day in and day out, you run into a closed road.
Turning into old folk, chasing after rose gold.
What they don't know is that it belongs to a fool.
Choosing wants over needs, singing songs of a mule.
Carrying their burdens when you barely know the person,
And that is the difference between a pharaoh and a servant.

Break down the walls of the maze and run through the finish line.

Life is like a maze, try to keep track of the days that take us from place to place.

Awaken and face-to-face.
Too many choices, possibilities, indecision is killing me.
And if you lend a helping hand, then I will follow willingly.

Life is like a maze... when I'm flippin' through the pages.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting viewpoint. I never thought of Twitter as chaotic time. Maybe it’s because I am not following any people that randomly tweets their emotion every short period of time. Do you see yourself using twitter after this blog assignment?
    I had the same viewpoint about the forking path being a parallel universe. After reading it over three times, I discarded the idea and went with a different viewpoint. If a parallel universe does exist, I hope someone can build a machine that allows people to cover over.

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