Which position is your default?

The only way that William Shatner could over-act so heavily is if in his own mind he thinks he is actually spot on.  In other words, his perception of what he is doing is completely different from everyone else’s.  He must have been thinking, “I’m really in my acting prime now.  All that Star Trek stuff was just a stepping stone to this ‘Climbing the Mountain” work.”  Well… maybe he wasn’t thinking that exactly, but you get the idea.

It’s like all those contestants on American Idol.  I’m talking about the contestants that come on at the start of the season that are so bad, you feel embarrassed for them.  The train wrecks everyone tunes in to watch.  They think they sing really well, while everyone else around the world is hearing a two rabid cats fighting over a screeching mouse.  If these people knew how they really sounded they wouldn’t do it on national television.  Most of them really believe they can win and are shocked, or indignant, when told that they didn’t make it through.

This is why we need friends.  True friends that will say, “Hey, Kirk, stop climbing the mountain, Buddy.  You sound completely Looney Toones and someone is gonna edit it and put that thing on YouTube.”

I think we are all prone to seeing ourselves the way we WANT to see ourselves instead of really looking with honesty.  If we don’t have people in our lives to tell us the truth, we will always end up some day playing the fool.

Hopefully not on YouTube.  Hopefully.

But that’s not to say it ALWAYS goes well. Sometimes I have to take DayQuil because a cold has hit me before it’s too late to call in reinforcements. That’s what happened this past week.

When I started the morning on Sunday I had no idea that the day would eventually end with me inspecting the inside of my toilet at home with the kind of scrutiny that only health inspectors and ecoli should endure.

I got out of bed with a dull headache from the cold I had come down with, but was generally feeling better.

Knowing that I would have to be focused for my message in a few hours, I dropped a couple shots of DayQuil. I should have remembered what this unholy elixir does to my tender brain cells, but still I threw caution to the wind and dropped those shots like a Pepto on Bingo night. Had I read the label, I’m now sure it would have read “DayQuil: Meth Formula — for those mornings when that snuffy head, fever, cough, runny nose, achy, sneezy, sinus disease you have can only be dealt with by an over-the-counter methamphetamine”.

I never lost consciousness, but I do vaguely recall the following events in a kind of dreamy, subconsious, chuck-norris-whispering-in-The-Octagon kind of way:

• I forgot how to end worship and start Communion (communion almost always immediately follows worship at KCC). Instead I decided that ending worship and just sitting down on the front row while everyone stared at me confused was a good way to keep things moving. I recall a strange, worried look from our worship leader as if to say, “Dude. What are you doing?”
• I remember several people telling me important things for me to remember prior to the service, but straining my brain to remember them feels a bit like staring intently at one of those “look at this dot until this ugly poster becomes a 3D image of Billy Idol” things at the mall. All I get is a headache and a strange feeling that everyone else is smarter than me.
• At some point in my sermon I wanted to say the word “castrated”, but only in my head. Some little voice said to me, “Don’t say castrated. That’s gross.” So I didn’t say “castrated”. I said, “neutered”. But that wasn’t really what I meant. So I said, “I want to say another word, but can’t. How about I say, ‘impotent’.” Then I realized that was neither what I wanted to say, nor any less gross than “castrated” when you really think about it. But I didn’t want to think about it anymore because thinking (thanks to DayQuil) was only making things worse. So I think I just moved on. At least I hope I did.
• Then I remember Claire Alston speaking about this being her last Sunday at KCC before she leaves for the mission field. It was a big moment. I remember praying for her. I’m sure what I said was fine. Hopefully “neutered, castrated, and impotent” didn’t come up again. Though I’m sure memorable, this would not be the best way to commemorate a new missionary into the field.
• Then I recall driving home willing my insides not to become my outsides as my son Owen tried to talk me into dropping by KFC for a bucket of greasy chicken. I tried to explain, “Daddy feels like he’s about to swallow his appendix from the inside.” but when little boys want chicken they get tunnel vision.

One never appreciates a clean and sanitized toilet, or the loving understanding of church members with a sense of humor more than when the pastor is hopped up on DayQuil.

Here’s to next year’s flu season.

If you’ve been happily living unaware of what a “follower ratio” is, allow me to briefly explain.  Many people in the twitterverse these days proclaim that if your ratio of people following you vs. people you are following is really far apart then this says some bad things about you.  At the very least, it’s bad form, bad manners, and communicates that you do not care about listening to others and only care about others listening to you.  You are a broadcaster, not a social media participant.  You are an irresponsible netizen.

Hogwash.

This is precisely the reason why your list of “friends” on Facebook means nothing now.  This is why Facebook had to create a “hide” feature in your feed so you could hide away friends that you don’t like without actually having the unfriend them.  That’s silly.

One of the primary ways that you find other interesting people to follow on Twitter is through the Following list belonging to the people that you already follow.  The assumption is, “If I am following you, you are probably following some people that I would find interesting.”  So you check out their list and follow some of them.  This is one of the primary ways that Twitter grows and spreads.

Now, if you put pressure on twitter users to follow those that follow them then you automatically begin decreasing the value and authenticity of their list of followed users.  It ceases to mean anything to them.  It ceases to mean anything to everyone.  Soon, Twitter will have to invent ways to unfollow people without actually unfollowing them just like Facebook has done.  Again, that’s silly.

Does anyone actually believe that a human being can keep up with more than 100 active people at a time on Twitter?  Sure.  Create your lists, Tweetdeck filters, and all that jazz.  Go ahead.  You still won’t follow that many people.  You will have the list that you follow that filters out the people you don’t care about, while everyone else gets relegated to a column off-screen somewhere. You’ve in effect unfollowed people without actually unfollowing them and now your “following” list means about as much as your Facebook “friends” list does right now.  Just a hair more than nothing.

Stop the madness.  Only follow people you care about and don’t follow more people than you can realistically keep up with.  Don’t be silly, and don’t succumb to the pressure to make social media socially shallow.  It doesn’t have to be, but it will be if you start following people that you could care less about.

Recently, several people I know have told me that they are quitting twitter, or have just stopped using it because the people they follow say annoying things.  This is a symptom of what I’m talking about here.

As for me, I will only follow people that interest me or that I know personally, offline.  If that means you won’t follow me, then so be it.  At least you will be able to look at who I am following and know that every person on that list has some significance to me.  You will also know that if I follow you, I will actually read what you say and not drop you in a filtered column of purgatory off -screen.  I currently follow a little over 200 people on twitter.  Only 75 – 100 of those are active at all.  Very few of the remaining ones tweet every day.

What are your thoughts?  Am I right on this one?