Twitter Opens Up a New World Online

While Twitter is likely to be around for a while, it takes some getting used to, mostly as its most visible features, Following, and Followers start to go from a few at the start, to a few hundred, and you find yourself unable to manually track what used to be fun and easy. The biggest and most profound change for me was as I approached my first 100 followers, and started to notice that my iPhone was getting inundated with SMS messages coming in, to the point where I had to shut off the phone's notification feature of vibration and tones, to let me know I was getting yet another SMS.

The first inconvenience was that I started missing family member text messages, because my phone was silently receiving them along with literally hundreds of messages a day. I started to think that the obvious solution was to turn off mobile notifications from all but the most important Followings, in terms of my interest in their comments.

I couldn't decide, and so I resorted to the plethora of tools available for my iPhone, and tested several before landing on one or two (*Twitterfon and Twittelator) that allowed me, without using Twitter's Mobile device feature, to not only log into my Twitter acct with my iPhone and read friends' comments, but then reply with a click.

I could, with one tool, track any "Tweets" that contained my username, infohwyman. This allowed me to be as responsive as I had always been to those who were either commenting directly to me, or replying to one of my earlier tweets, or even, as I discovered, saying something nice about me to another. It also allowed me to use my iPhone whenever I was ready to look at and catch up with the tweets that interested me and not be constantly bombarded with a steady stream of tweets, at times useless or pointless, and sometimes just not pertinent to me or my needs.

I have already heard of people getting exasperated and giving up on the whole deal, and I imagine to some extent it would be for some of the same frustrations I had felt, before I took action and found a way to allow this very useful and fun tool to continue to connect me to a world of thoughts and ideas, the likes of which have never come to me with such rapidity, nor usefulness as they do now.

There are so many positive uses that Twitter offers the adept and conscientious user, that I will save the ideas for a later post, but suffice to say now with utter conviction, Twitter has caught me in its net, and I am bound to it now, by the growing number of interesting people who have already made me feel very much at home, and many of which have already told me that I have made a measurable difference in their day with something I said. That is why I am here, and it is where I am heading.

* I am using a jailbroken iPhone, on TMobile's network, so apps available to me are actually not exactly the same as the Applestore apps, so I won't at this point make recommendations for iPhone apps to use, but Google and check around, there are already many reviews that led me to where I am happy now.

Is Monogamy Really A Selfish Form of Marriage? Answer to the Pavlinas Polyamory Argument

I have been married to my wife for nineteen years and we have felt lots of sexual tension, not to mention emotional extremes, but because we are both committed to the marriage and to each other, we have had no other choice than to work it out.

Frankly, I have always been a "live and let live" sort of guy, but to hear Steve and Erin Pavlina state that monogamy is actually a selfish form of marriage, because each partner acts as though they own the other is to denounce monogamy for its most failed manifestation, the marriage entered into for selfish needs or by two people who have no desire to stretch and grow. My wife and I meet each others needs, not because we are slaves to the other or owned by one another, but because we have, of our own free will, given ourselves to each other, and desire to make this life and forever together, a wonderful experience for the companionship of each other.

There are incompatibilities in any marriage, and the answer most assuredly is not for me to go find someone else who meets this or that need that my wife just won't. A lot of times, not doing so causes me to figure out what I want more, or whether or not this need is in fact a need. Most of the times, we should not go fulfill every deviant want that we can imagine is really a need.

I still feel that the Pavlinas deserve whatever kind of marriage they want, and I must also say that when they describe polyamory as a way of building a stronger marriage because both partners are happiest in this form of marriage relationship, I have to say, in my humble opinion, that no happiness garnered from experiences outside of a loving devoted companionship, could ever be greater than that experienced by two people who have learned and loved together, and decided that each other's needs are more important than a moment or two of pleasure that they might find elsewhere.

My marriage to my wife will last beyond the life we are living now, because we have raised children together, struggled together, fought side by side against a common enemy, and fought with each other about what was important to each of us. To live a life where we go and satisfy every desire when we have it and always meet every need the moment our partner does not, is to live a highly undisciplined existence which in the end, does not build strength of character or a strong love bond between two people.

I personally cannot see how polyamory could be described as a proper way to build a strong bond of trust between two people, because even if we are to shed all our selfishness, and envy, which is and should be the goal even in monogamy, the entwining of two lives is not as the Pavlinas describe, a shaky foundation of pillars so close that the structure tumbles, but is the divine multiplication of the gifts each individual brings to the marriage that strengthens the two as they become one flesh, a scriptural principle worth noting and as it is exemplified in my own life, with my own wife, and yes she is mine, and I am hers. Not at all selfishly, and yet, in a way that causes me to love her as I love myself. But I have to love myself enough to appreciate her.

To me, polyamory is not and could not be described as less selfish than monogamy, when both are lived to their highest forms. Monogamy does not mean to me that I cannot have emotional bonds with other women, nor my wife with other men, but the danger in living a life based upon excusing myself from even trying to meet my partner's needs that are uncomfortable to me is that it becomes a lazy way of loving and soon enough, one or the other will find someone else who meets more needs, better; then what?!?

Another Poem from Random Words

to Dragonblogger, I could really get to like this, for one, it is a brain wrangler and a half, to take a finite set of words and make a poem work. I did the following with the 9 words you got today, though I took a bit more than 90 seconds. For some reason, mine still need some sort of rhyming meter to work for me, tell me what you think.

Wasteful Earth Hater

They try so hard to make me cave
to think the octopus is my brother
they sell it all with marketable fear
but the information makes me smother

This environment is not some precious prize
that I must preserve for another
I trust in me and my own demand
my faith is in me, so why bother

Then another says with a louder voice
when they bury you, like so much fodder
then the sprinkles of dirt that you never cared for
will become a landslide, from your mother


The nine words were:
@summerbreeze80 (octopus),
@azredneck (demand),
@grumpy79 (faith),
@IntegralChaotic (landslide),
@mebanded (marketable),
@infohwyman (environment),
@SJohnson85 (sprinkles),
@SurfCityJay (information),
@stevebelt (precious)

Trying my hand at composing poetry from random words

The poem I am creating today is created using random words sent to DragonBlogger, a Twitter friend, with which he created a poem also.

Thanks to the following people for submitting their words: @SurfCityJay (love), @grumpy79 (euphoria), @izealove (sycophant), @summerbreeze80 (desperation), @WebBetty (fastidious), @SonoranDragon (spizzerinctum), @infohwyman (triumph)

Here is mine poem with the 7 words.

Love to so many is a noun
something that just miraculously arrives,
the euphoria of the brush of one found,
from the desperation of our lonely lives

yet to others the secret is bared,
ne'er the sycophant gains all that's sweet
for in the moment of triumph, alls fair
none can gain such a prize with a cheat

for the heart of another's not booty
to be taken fastidious -ly
wi' spizzerinctum thou doest thy duty
it will come by and by, thou shall see

This is posted on my blog so I can send him a link to check this out on twitter.

His poem for today can be found at http://www.wandererthoughts.com/2009/01/random-twitter-poem-for-january-5th/

Thanks again for the inspiration, I have several blogs that have been utterly neglected during the holidays.

2009 will find me more dedicated to these and more.