Modern Living V

 

V.  Media

Sunday night, Canberra, Australia

In a clear sky, Betelgeuse arcs on my right, Jupiter is retrograde and Sirius and Procyon are bright tonight.

If you were on Twitter a decade ago, you could feel when it began to decay. But there was a time before, when it hit the sweet spot.

Of them all, the only digital platform I was interested in spending time on was Twitter.

I spent about a year watching it.

I decided what was important:

Ethics & etiquette.

Punctuation.

I’m a writer, not a journalist.

Tweetyarns would be live, and a maximum of 7 minutes between posts to optimize placement in the feed.

Have a schedule, the discipline is good for me.

Use my full name.

…

I thought about:

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 2007 (French: Le Scaphandre et le Papillon)

Hunger 2008

Son of Saul 2015 (Hungarian: Saul fia)

What to say when it is difficult?

How to get close enough?

How to write the human condition?

Who am I to tell the stories?

Why?

…

Katharine Viner founded Guardian Australia in 2013, marking a major milestone in the outlet’s global expansion.

Kath Viner made the unimaginable possible for many Aboriginal Australian writers.

…

For a few years, Twitter was worth the time and effort, for the people I met, the good will I shared, and the influence it wielded. It came and it went. 

No labour is lost.

…

People ask if I had a problem with trolls.

Not really. I was overwhelmed with kindness and curiosity and always tried my very best in any medium.

A troll is a stranger who stands outside your house and yells at you from the street. You don’t know them, can’t quite work out what they are saying, and they seem full of life.

Storytellers and the people who pay attention to them are two sides of the same coin. One is nothing without the other.

….

Thank you for reading Modern Living Parts I, II, III, IV and V

 

Siv Parker

House of Abundant Peace

2026