How John Darnielle taught me to Tweet

As a staff Crossroads has been having a lot of discussions about Twitter lately. It’s obviously become a significant part of our culture and, as such, it’s something we want to be aware of and somewhat involved in.

And for some of us, it’s something we enjoy apart from any obligation we feel to engage people where they are.

I’ve been on Twitter for a few years now and posting my thoughts and opinions to the internet for well over a decade in some for or other. At times I’ve done so with very little in the way of a filter or good taste. In the last few years, being on staff at Crossroads I’ve started to realize that not every thought that comes into my head needs to make it’s way onto the internet - sometimes because I have a startling moment of clarity and maturity and sometimes because the boss makes his way down the hall to talk to me about something I’ve posted (never in a controlling way, or demanding way - always in the form of a conversation or concern). The fact is, on any given weekend I can find myself on stage talking to a couple thousand people - so all of a sudden my sphere of influence is a lot bigger than the small handful of people that read my blog back in 2003. That brings a certain amount of responsibility with it.

I’m fine with the responsibility most of the time. I bristle against it, however, when it comes to certain issues. Like politics.

For the past week, I’ve had some thoughts about the world we live in and the people who govern it that are burning a whole into my brain. I have written and erased twenty tweets about these particular thoughts. Every time I tell myself that I need to be mature and not post about politics because it might alienate someone, I hear this little voice in the back of my head saying things like, “Yeah, but this is important!” “This is truth and people should be offended by the truth sometimes!” and “Chicken! This church has neutered you!”

Clearly I’m conflicted.

This morning, though, I was reading an interview with John Darnielle, lead singer of the Mountain Goats, a band I’m very, very fond of. Darnielle would probably describe himself as a leftist, a feminist, and all kinds of other words Rush Limbaugh hates. When asked why he doesn’t write about politics in his songs, though, he had this to say:

“…as important as politics are to me, the life and the spirit of people’s emotions are much more important. People live real lives where they love and grieve and feel pain and joy and that is a whole separate sphere. All that political stuff, I believe in it strongly, but not as strongly as I believe that at some point you or someone is going to need a song to sit with and comfort them in a hard time. That’s important to me, and if during that song I’m telling you how to vote, I’m not doing my personal job as a songwriter.”

Now I would never compare any of my tweets to a Mountain Goats song (though, Darnielle is pretty prolific, so they’re probably pretty equal in terms of numbers), but he does make a good point - ultimately, when you’re expressing yourself, you have to figure out what is most important to you. I didn’t choose to devote my life to politics - I chose to devote it to trying to love, comfort, and communicate with people (none of which I probably do that well, but that’s another blog post). Politics are important, but when I let them overshadow my real purpose, or take away from it, then I’ve made them too important.

Darnielle is simply rephrasing an opinion that a few people have shared with me before - but sometimes you have to hear something from an unexpected source for it to really take hold.

I’m not saying we can’t talk about politics - but it’s probably better if we do it outside of Twitter and it’s limited character count and when you can look at my real face instead of at a tiny picture of me.