What Twitter Does To Your Brain

It's not the freak occurrence it might seem, Twitter's co-founder submitting to psychoanalysis before a New York crowd. No, this sort of Jungian free-associating is what microblogging was expressly designed to do.

Shown a picture from psychologist Carl Jung's newly unsealed "Red Book," Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey said, according to the Wall Street Journal, that it "made him think of a map. He talked about his childhood fascination with maps, which eventually spurred him to learn about computer programming so that he could create maps on a computer. He later created a company that dispatched taxis and couriers via the Web." (More in the an excerpt from a WSJ video, above, or full video, below.)

An observer, though, might have thought not of maps but of Twitter. Co-founder Biz Stone has repeatedly said the service's text limits give it "low cognitive load" that "lowers the barrier, and it gets people communicating." Sounds a lot like free association, or the free form journal-ing Jung did in his Red Book. Is Twitter a way to tap the collective unconscious and thus unify humanity? Perhaps.

But the results of micoblogging could be more nefarious. Jung warned that his Red Book scribblings contained an ingredient of insanity:

"The reason... [this] looks very much like a psychosis is that the patient is integrating the same fantasy-material to which the insane person has fallen victim because he cannot integrate it but is swallowed up by it."

Perhaps that's a new slogan for Twitter: It's all good fun until you get "swallowed up by it" and turn psychotic from huffing your own fumes.

Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at ryan@gawker.com.

via gawker.com

Posted via web from Morgaine LeFaye

and even more quotes

Nothing has happened until it's described.
—Virginia Woolfe

Keeping an open mind is important, but not so open that your brain falls out.
—James Oberg, space engineer

I am for those tiny invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets . . . yet which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of human pride.
—Henry James

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get from it, but what they become by it.
—John Ruskin

To change one's life:
Start immediately.
Do it flamboyently.
No exceptions.
—Henry James

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
—Martin Luther King

The artist is willing to give all his or her strength and life to probing with blunt instruments those same secrets no one can describe any way but with the instruments’ faint tracks.
—Annie Dillard

In ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined turn out to be the same world.
—Clifford Geertz

A space is never about one thing. It is a place for many senses: sight, sound, touch and the unaccountable things that happen in between.
—Tadeo Ando

The impulse to create begins—often terribly and fearfully—in a tunnel of silence.
Adrienne Rich

Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror we're still just able to bear
—Rainer Maria Rilke

American imagination demands the real thing and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake.
—Umberto Eco

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—André Gide

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.
—Adrienne Rich

It is no great accomplishment to hear a voice in the head. The accomplishment is to make sure that it is telling you the truth.
—Terrence McKenna

We are losing our ability to imagine and that is the quickest way of losing sight of the truth.
—Paul Bowles

The greatest distance between people is not space but culture.
—Jamake Highwater

More quotes

A cynic is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
—Sidney J Harris

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
—James Branch Cabell

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
—Albert Einstein

The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover there is no reason.
—John Cage

Sex is the most compressed set of circumstances that we've got. Everything is in that collision.
—Arthur Miller

Ambition is exhausting. It makes you friends with people for the wrong reasons, just like drugs.
—Carrie Fisher

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream by night.
—Edgar Allan Poe

Sanity is madness put to good uses.
—George Santayana

Appealing work spaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.
—Annie Dillard

Experience is what you have when what you expect doesn't happen.
—Lee Shulman

Quotes

Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rather than pushed by our memories.
—Jesse Jackson

Boredom is only another name for a certain species of frustration.
— Susan Sontag

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
—Noam Chomsky

Against the irrationality of violence, it is necessary to propose the irrationality of forgiveness.
— Lionel Navarez

The truth will set you free. But first,it will piss you off.
—Gloria Steinem

I think that there is far too much work done in the world.
— Bertrand Russell
- In Praise of Idleness -

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
—Twyla Tharp

As the shadow follows the body
As we think, so we become
—Buddha

Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't.
—Buckminster Fuller

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.
—Jane Wagner

Philosophy of Sex

"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy."
--Tom Clancy

"You know "that look" women get when they want sex? Me neither."
--Steve Martin

"Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand."
--Woody Allen

"Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."
--Rodney Dangerfield

"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal,
particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL."
--Lynn Lavner

"Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist."
--Matt Barry

"Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope."
--Camille Paglia

"Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant."
--George Burns

"Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships."
--Sharon Stone

"My girlfriend always laughs during sex---no matter what she's reading."
--Steve Jobs (Founder, Apple Computers)

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch."
--Jack Nicholson

"Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is."
--Barbara Bush (Former US First Lady -- and you didn't think Barbara had a sense of humor)

"Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet."
--Robin Williams

"Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself."
--Roseanne

"Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place."
--Billy Crystal

"According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful."
--Robert De Niro

"There's a new medical crisis. Doctors are reporting that many men are having allergic reactions to latex condoms. They say they cause severe swelling. So what's the problem?"
--Dustin Hoffman

"There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men think, I know what I'm doing. Just show me somebody naked."
--Jerry Seinfeld

"Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and just give her a house."
--Rod Stewart

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time."
--Robin Williams

Quotes about writing and writers

"A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure." - Thoreau, Henry David

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." - Bach, Richard

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." - Mann, Thomas

"A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer." - Kraus, Karl

"A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others." - Rosten, Leo

"Agatha Christie has given more pleasure in bed than any other woman." - Smith, Nancy Banks

"An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children." - Disraeli, Benjamin

"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent." - Baldwin, James

"As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word." - Lichtenberg, Georg C.

"Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon." - Zinsser, William

"Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened." - Orwell, George

"He is a man of thirty-five, but looks fifty. He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only pair were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him, he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak, he will be suffering from a hangover. At present it is half past eleven in the morning, and according to his schedule he should have started work two hours ago; but even if he had made any serious effort to start he would have been frustrated by the almost continuous ringing of the telephone bell, the yells of the baby, the rattle of an electric drill out in the street, and the heavy boots of his creditors clumping up the stairs. The most recent interruption was the arrival of the second post, which brought him two circulars and an income tax demand printed in red. Needless to say this person is a writer." - Orwell, George

"He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window." - James, Henry

"Home is not where you live but where they understand you." - Christion, Morgenstern

"I would love to spend all my time writing to you; I'd love to share with you all that goes through my mind, all that weighs on my heart, all that gives air to my soul; phantoms of art, dreams that would be so beautiful if they could come true." - Pirandello, Luigi

"The cure for writers cramp is writer's block." - Leon, Inigo de

"Your works will be read after Shakespeare and Milton are forgotten - and not till then." - Porson, Richard

From the inbox - men and women

I dare anyone to try it!!

I never quite figured out why the s*xual urge of men & women differ so much. And I never have figured out the whole Venus and Mars thing. I have never figured out why men think with their head and women with their heart.

I have never figured out why the s*xual desire gene gets thrown into a state of turmoil, when it hears the words "I do."

FOR EXAMPLE:

One evening last week, my wife and I were getting into bed. Well, the
passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says "I don't feel like it, I just want you to hold me."

I said "WHAT????!!! What was that?!"

So she says the words that every husband on the planet dreads to hear... "You're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man."

She responded to my puzzled look by saying, "Can't you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?"

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night I went to sleep. The very next day I opted to take the day off of work to spend time with her. We went out to a nice lunch and then went shopping at a big, big unnamed dept. store. I walked around with her while she tried on several different very expensive outfits. She couldn't decide which one to take so I told her we'll just buy them all.

She wanted new shoes to compliment her new clothes, so I said lets get a pair for each outfit. We went on to the jewellery dept. where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you...she was so excited. She must have thought I was one wave short of a shipwreck.

I started to think she was testing me because she asked for a tennis bracelet when she doesn't even know how to play tennis. I think I threw her for a loop when I said, "That's fine, honey."

She was almost nearing s*xual satisfaction from all of the excitement. Smiling with excited anticipation she finally said, "I think this is all dear, let's go to the cashier".

I could hardly contain myself when.......................

I blurted out, "No honey, I don't feel like it."

Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled WHAT???!!!"

I then said, "Really honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for awhile..

You're just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman."

And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me I added, "Why can't you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?"

Apparently I'm not having s*x tonight either.