twisdom 2.0: Twitter wisdom of @swamiroberts aka John R. Roberts
About this ebook
Swami Roberts is a character, a mystic, a seer, a pontificator, an inspirer and a jokester. When you look at life through the lens of the Swami, you’re seeing a little further and underneath the veneer we all take for granted.
The 140 character limit of an utterance on Twitter imposes a brevity that makes the tweeter get right to the point. The Swami lives within this harsh constraint and began tweeting in 2010 when something became important enough to comment about.
While the Swami offers up opinions on many topics, most can be classified into the categories: Work, Wise, Love, Cash, Soul, Joke, Tech, Twitter and Food. These are the chapters of the book with insights onto each.
Language is a fascination of the Swami. Recently the phrase "throwing sheep" came to mean offering up a pointless or senseless comment. The Swami strives to avoid throwing sheep, but on occasion will refrain from seriousness. Often there is a serious side to the Swami and a truth inside the funny comment. The Love and Soul chapters are more serious than the other sections, although fans of Dilbert or Office Space will find the truths in the Work chapter familiar.
The world around us is the inspiration for the Swami. A new trend has been to sell craft beer in refillable bottles called “growlers”. This term dates from the late 1800s when such bottles were capped and said to growl as carbonation escaped. Ever watchful on new trends, the Swami commented on this word re-entering our vocabulary: “A Growler is an animal that emits a menacing low frequency noise, a container for holding beer or an empty stomach awaiting fulfillment.”
In the past it was only the court jester that could speak the truth safely to the king. Of course even the jester had to be cautious and was careful to conceal his insight with humor. Take the Swami in the same vein. There be truth in these tweets.
twisdom 2.0 has an entire chapter on Twitter that considers the very nature of the social network and what activities on it mean. What is mentioned for Twitter can also apply to Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram or other social networks too.
There are a few quotes in this book. Paul Bingman was a close personal friend who died in 2011. I really wish he was here to read this book, although he did read some of the Swami's early tweets and had fun feedback. Paul said "All you really have is your time and your attention." That was the philosophy of at least his later years, where Paul always strove to help others and do the good he could while also having some fun.
You might take the Swami in small doses. You might gorge your eyes and mind with a long good read. I find myself reading the Swami when I'm feeling lost or down and the Swami always picks me up a bit. Here's hoping the Swami lifts you to a higher self too.
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About the author
Swami Roberts is the alter-ego of John R. Roberts, a long-time technologist and aspiring writer. In 2009 during a period of unemployment Roberts discovered Twitter, the perfect combination of technology and concise writing. The attraction was instant if the inspiration was not. What then to tweet? There are plenty of Twitterers who post every mundane aspect of their life, but what about someone reflecting on the higher meaning of life and the paradoxes we encounter every day.
This was the inspiration for writing something that someone else might want for read, even if only in 140 characters or less. Kind of a new form of graffiti, more transient, more ordered, but that same quality of random human expression. Yet with those constraints can something profound or funny or profoundly funny emerge? That is the idea of Swami Roberts.
On August 23, 2010 the first psychic tweet of @swamiroberts emanated out into the ether. The Swami has been emanating ever since.
