Susan Boyle Energizes the World
I've been using and enjoying the social website Twitter, as TomVMorris, for about six weeks now. To my tremendous surprise, it's a distinctive and amazing experience. It's not about telling the world, or your fourteen followers, what you had for lunch. It's about building a new form of community. It's about learning. And it's also about having some fun. But the most important aspect of Twitter is that, if you do things right, you surround yourself with an incredible collection of people from around the world who are eager to share their insights and questions about life.
There is communal thinking on Twitter on a level and in a form I've never seen before. Almost every day, a topic comes up that causes me, as a philosopher, to ponder a bit, and then share the results of that pondering in the 140 character increments that Twitter allows. Today, someone mentioned Susan Boyle, the lady who has made such a stir worldwide with her recent appearance on the television show Britain's Got Talent. The You Tube video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY.
As I reflected and tweeted briefly on Susan and her lessons for the rest of us, people started retweeting, or passing along those short reflections to others. When I saw what touched people the most, and elicited the best responses, that in turn informed what I continued to think and tweet. While considering all the activity that these simple tweets generated, because of who Susan Boyle is and what she's shown us, I decided to use an extra blog post today simply to share these tweets, or twitter reflections, to provide an example of the unlikely musing that is now flashing around the internet, and also to highlight Susan's example for us in this forum as well.
These were all simple observations that were sent out a minute or so apart. If they stimulate your own thoughts, they will have done their work.
Keep in mind the 140 character format, if you're not familiar with Twitter, and the need for a topic announcement with each offering, as every one of them has to stand on its own or be lost in the fast moving stream of Heraclitean tweets.
Susan Boyle: The picture of courage. Immense self-possession. Perfect Centeredness. Inner beauty. And a spirit of fun.
Susan Boyle: My definition of actualizing potential by allowing the energy of the universe to flow through you.
Susan Boyle: One small person amazing, inspiring, and energizing the world.
Susan Boyle: The Imponderable, Improbable, even Impossible Dream empowering us all to reach and achieve.
Susan Boyle: Her wondrous spirit washed over that hall in a flash, enveloping everyone, lifting them up, and filling their hearts.
Susan Boyle: One moment. One person. One act of open surrender to what's truly possible.
Susan Boyle: The power to change a face. The power to melt a heart. The power to cover the earth with belief. From one small village.
Susan Boyle: The immense, incalculable power of inner vision, humility, persistence, and play.
Susan Boyle: Our living lesson that when life provides a stage, sing your heart out, and prepare to be blessed!
Two reminders of hope: Captain Sully lands a plane, and Susan Boyle takes off with a career - equally improbably, and both truly great.
Susan Boyle: A walking paradox, as are we all, so her example gives us hope.
Who knew that Socratic Simon Cowell would be the midwife of all this?
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Seems I cannot turn a corner (even in my tiny Arkansas hamlet) w/o hearing Susan Boyle's name.
What a great story/tribute. Thanks Tom.
Rick London
www.London
Everything about Susan's appearance on Britain's Got Talent was moving including the words of the song she was singing. I usually don't like musical theater tunes but the words got me because they are my story too as a still struggling woman, actor/writer of 55 yrs.old
I was indeed touched by this story, and thanks for tracking me down (and my measly little blog) about it... The cynics are out in full force: "It was staged!" "She's a man!" and so forth... but there can be no doubt this event forced us to examine ourselves well and truly and without guile... an exercise we should perhaps engage in more frequently -- say between spinning classes or sessions with our personal coaches. Here's to more than "15 minutes" for Susan Boyle.
http://ff.
When Susan Boyle sang, why did we weep? Perhaps because we were struck that her beautiful voice had been locked away for forty-seven years and might have been forever silent were it not for this night when this unlikely woman braved ridicule and insisted on being heard.
But what do I know. I'm just an old, retired TV comedy hack.
HowToWrite
That is an amazing, beautiful voice that just uplifts the spirit. That is separate from the back story. Most people assume that because of her dowdy appearance her voice seems to be such a surprise. But it's not the persona. It's the voice. That is a very, very special sound that she has when she's singing. Watch her sing A Capella on the CBS Early Show. Amazing.
I cannot watch her sing without crying. She chose the right song and it happened at the right moment. This sweet adorable woman singing I Dream a Dream signified so much to me.
I wish her the best of success and thank her so much for inspiring me.
Tell that to the billions people who don't have electricity, bub.
My goodness, Susan Boyle is the best phenomena to sweep the music world. I wish her prosperity.
http://eye
She is wonderful. Just wonderful.
I agree with Tom and thelittlefluffycat comment above. I was watching Simon's face intently. I don't think I've ever seen that level of joy and surprise on his face, so it was nice to see his human side.
I twittered the video to my followers last night, not knowing it had been twittered earlier in the day & also got comments from my Facebook friends about it. I was still thinking about it this morning so I wrote a blog post on my site entitled "Inspiration: Inside Out or Outside In?".
It's amazing to see how this has video taken off, but there's a deeper question here about what people do with the inspiration in their own life that goes past just a momentary good feeling. I call that voyeuristic inspiration. So my question is, "Is that kind of inspiration real if you don't do anything with it?"
I honestly think I was as much moved by Simon Cowell's unguarded, uncynical, unmisanthropic response, the incredulous joy that swept over him, as I was by Ms. Boyle's astounding performance. It was as though she'd said "clap if you believe" to a roomful of people, and the whole world responded.
We all of us want so badly to believe, to rejoice -- bless her for reminding all of us of the magic all around us, in the most unexpected places!
I love that! "CLAP AND BELIEVE." Imagine if our so called world leaders/politicians (???)
could rally the world in this postive, beautiful way she has?
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