Saturday, January 31, 2009

Subterranean Gardening and the Dreams of Cats

My friend David from Confluent Forms and I were IMing last week about how to use Twitter for business, specifically promoting music. He linked me to this post from his CF blog about the subject. I highly recommend reading it if you're in a business or any venture that wants to better understand what this tweeting is all about and take advantage of the latest unprecedented developments in online communication.

Okay, that said, what jumped out at me in his article was his descriptions of his initial reactions to some previous innovations. David has a skeptical mind which serves him well. He doesn't succumb to the hype on a YouTube, Facebook, etc. but watches them develop and tinkers with them. His initial feeling about blogs: "why should I care what some nutjob thinks about whether his cat has dreams, how to garden in your basement, or any slightly less ridiculous topics."

This seemed almost directed at me specifically! I suddenly felt like my blog was frivolous and a waste of time, especially compared to David's more purposeful and goal oriented work with the internet via Confluent Forms. He's innovating and I'm flagellating! David has a trait that doesn't come naturally to me. Talking to him, I can sense that his thoughts actually connect to each other and lead to a logical discovery or a useful conclusion. My thoughts (and words) are like a bullet ricocheting around a room. Peeyowww! ZiiiiDIP! Bing! Eventually they lodge in something but it's pretty random.

Obviously the difference is I do mine for fun, and his company is a business. But I always get the nagging suspicion that I'm wasting my potential by not jumping into his world. That I should be learning how to use the internet to generate income while also doing something creative instead of goofing around. I should be monetizing! Let's go monetize!

But I love goofing around.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Dreams of Cats, last week our 21 year old cat died, and that first night she was in my dream. It was one of those lucid dreams. In the dream I said to my wife, "look there's our cat!", but, my wife couldn't see her.

The next day I told my wife about seeing our cat in my dream, but I couldn't bear to tell her that in the dream she hadn't seen her.

The next night, my cat was in my dream again, but my wife wasn't. I guess I was feeling guilty that I was dreaming of our recently departed cat, and she wasn't. After that second night I stopped dreaming of our cat.

Finally, last night, my wife had a dream and our cat was in it. She took her to our garden to look at flowers. Now I am looking forward to sleeping tonight, because I won't feel guilty when my dear cat is in my dream again.

Mary E.Carey said...

Great cat dream pic, Jim. Hope you don't mind if I borrow it for my cat blog. Anon, that is such a touching story.

Anonymous said...

Yeah and Tate and Simic are just goofing around, right?

There is goofing and there is goofing. There are lines and there are elipses. Just ask Zippy the Pinhead.

Some things coalesce on the page, others soon afterward.