ARTS
A Love For Life

A Love For Life

by Melissa Auf der Maur Musician, formerly of Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins; photographer.

First Posted: Jan 20 2010 15:58 PM
Updated: 5 months ago

How to spread love with a little help from social media.

#ILOVELIFE

I am a bit of an old-fashioned girl. I love Vikings, the Renaissance, and magic. But that has not stopped me from embracing the 21st century, including the endless possibilities of the internet.

My relationship with the internet began in 2005 when I started my blog. I have been keeping a diary since I was 10 years old, so a dialogue between myself and an “unknown” reader was quite natural to me.

Since then, many social media empires have sprung up. I’ve dabbled in them all, but I’ve become most comfortable with Twitter. It feels more like a miniature blog than a whole new type of interaction like Facebook.

A WAVE OF INSPIRATION!

Any connection or project I start must come from the heart. I cannot force a friendship or a song. I must find an emotional connection to it.

Over the holidays, I signed onto my TweetDeck, just as I would open my diary to capture some stream of consciousness thought, and I had my first heartfelt creative Twitter breakthrough.

It was December 29 and I started a casual dialogue with some strangers about their New Year’s Eve plans. New Year’s Eve has always been my favourite day of the year – I love those moments of intense endings and beginnings. 2010 was a big one &ndash a new decade in a still-young millennium. It was an inspiring thought, one that reinforced my love of life, and as I sat Tweeting, an idea came through my eager fingertips: This was the time for a communal 2010 "I LOVE LIFE" unison chant!

My tweet was met with an enthusiastic response, and this casual Twitter exchange quickly turned into an auspicious brainstorming session.

The result? A plan, which I posted on my blog:

“I am going to document my midnight, with my people, where I am, to prove the LOVE WE MERE HUMANS HAVE for this great LIFE. IF you can do the same, wherever you are, then post a link to prove it. Be sure to tag or mark it with #ILOVELIFE so i can find it, and post it …”

SUCCESS!

After a fantastic night of friends, music, and celebration, I awoke on January 1, keen to find out how many other life-lovers had taken part in the chant. The result was amazing.

Via my blog, Facebook and Twitter, people sent in their documentation. It made me so happy to compile the effort. It was a communal determination to walk into this new and ominous decade together with love. It was a global interaction, with an impressive list of participating countries:

People chanted in Argentina, Brazil, Britain, Canada, El Salvador, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad, and the United States.

Below is a compilation of the sentiments captured and shared from that midnight:

MARIANO