Say it with less than 140 characters

I'll admit that I'm intrigued with twitter. It might be a childlike fantasy that we can have super powers and read other peoples thoughts. Apparently people are only too willing to post their thoughts online as long as the thoughts are less than 140 characters. As a result I no longer have that fantasy. Most messages demonstrate that the majority of us live very mundane lives. I find this vaguely reassuring, being ordinary.

One bright spot in this world of under 140 characters is the opportunity to write Haiku and Poems (at least short poems). It's quite satisfying to conceive an idea and as you type it, watch a character counter tick to zero. It changes color just as it passes 10. Hit return and your pithy observation is born to the world (or as it is known the twitterverse). One person observed that many of the Haiku are written about cats. If you have a cat I don't need to explain this.

I don't see many poems or novels coming through, but it is just a matter of time. Haiku is big on twitter , really big. I have provided a link to a running feed of twitter haiku traffic (look in right column beneath the chickadee photo, scroll down).

In school we were always asked to write a 3 page essay or a 1000 word book report. Isn't it great to be constrained to less than 140 characters?