Constellation.
Some loosely associated ideas that have been camping in my head.
I like Twitter. I remember when I first heard about the service, it was during a real face-to-face conversation outside of a popular Indian restaurant. I wasn’t a big fan of the idea at first, I felt like it didn’t really provide a new or interesting channel for communication, and that it would likely be consumed by superfluous socializing a la Myspace.
It wasn’t until I actually started twittering that I found value in the service it provides. The “micro-blogging” format allows for easily composed (140 characters or less) and readily consumed (online or via mobile) points of information about people. Each of these little bite-size facts about a person can not only provide entertainment and camaraderie, but also help to form a better image of who that person is.
When you know someone really well, it can be as if you have a relatively accurate model of their behaviors in your head. You can make predictions about how they would respond to certain situations. This model is built upon all of the interactions you’ve had with that person; each experience can be likened to a single point within a constellation.
The more experiences you have involving this person, the more points you can plot into the space of who they are. Shapes and volumes take form, and you can anticipate what kinds of reactions fall within or without of the likely range of their behavior. When they do something unexpected, the new outlier point of information changes the shape of their constellation.
Hopefully, the more points of information or experience you have, the closer your model of that person comes to representing reality. For example, I feel like the model of my brother that lives in my head is fairly accurate. I know it is likely only as good as it needs to be to fool me, but it’s probably one of the most accurate models I have.
One thing I’ve always found very attractive, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, is when a person surprises you by being sharper, braver, more talented, or more quick-witted than you thought they were. These little surprises are wonderful, and they extend the shape of constellations in a good way. The shape extends in the direction of respectability, or beneficence, or some other admirable quality. Of course, the same can be said for points of information that reveal the shape of someone’s character to be less appealing.
In closing, They Might Be Giants.