People live tweet a variety of different events in their lives. When it comes to my generation's obsession with documenting every thought in the present moment before it slips away, I wholeheartedly support it and agree with it. Why read the classics when I can read every thought of every person on the internet as they think like aren't all of them gold nuggets?
Maybe not. Classics are considered classic for a reason: they capture an essential understanding of the human experience that can explain why we behave or think or feel the way that we do. I don't always receive such a present from the present thoughts of my generation through their tweets. However, what we have that those who authors of classics in the past did not have is the ability to communicate with each other in an instant. Communication is the ultimate tool for people.
So why it is completely acceptable for me to live tweet my feelings about fictional characters as I read books?
1. Communication is the ultimate tool for people.
What breeds conflict? Miscommunication and no communication at all. What breeds the appreciation of diversity and understanding? Communication. We need communication, and social media gives us the ability to communicate quickly. Communication is the bond between people. Without it, we become ignorant and wary of each other.
2. We need the freedom of speech because we need to express ourselves
People are like genes in a genome. We need a switch to allow ourselves to be expressed or we will remain silent, and that expression is fostered by social media like Twitter. Expressing ourselves allows us to stay in tune with our values and our senses of self. Sometimes we do not know what our opinions are until we have the ability to express them and are prompted by stimuli within our environment.
3. The public needs to know that Ashley Wilkes from Gone with the Wind is a Pansy
As I was reading a sequel to Gone with the Wind, I felt that the public needed to know the spirit of a fictional character named Ashley Wilkes. Why? Fictional characters are not just mere figments of imagination: they represent an important character trait in people all around us. A character from a novel can represent the pansy that anyone on Earth can also be. What I loved more than tweeting to the world that Ashley Wilkes is an eternal pansy is that 20 minutes after making this assertion, the author described Ashley Wilkes as a "gentle flower."
I somehow became right on an opinion, which is too subjective to actually be right.
The public needs to know of these occurrences, especially in a world where we are consumed by the present senses and not allowing ourselves to remember the precious defining moments that make us who we are. We need those moments that can change our outlooks and perspectives, and we need a place and time to remember why those moments were important.
Because without remembering those moments, we forget why we ever had our values in the first place. We need to social media to express ourselves to immortalize those moments and values as they are shaped for the better.
And maybe it's important for the public to remember that Ashley Wilkes is a pansy.
