How to keep track of your mind so you don't lose it

Here's a useful (?) tip for a way to get your bearings when you have that thought "What the hell am I doing with my life?" or "Where does all the time go?"

Take a look at your Google search history. (If you use some other kind of search engine - well, that's so 20th century I don't even know what to say. Maybe you should skip reading this and go see if "Fibber McGee and Molly" is on the radio.)

Google keeps track of the words you type into the search box. Mine seems to go back about six months. So a quick review tells me right away what I've been thinking about, working on, and wasting time with. For example, a selection of my recent searches:

Ryan Adams (obsessed with his music)
Samuel French (obsessed with reading plays)
Pubic hair fashion (would you believe it if I said I was writing my doctoral dissertation. No? I didn't think so.)
Chrome (that's the new Google web browser for your cave dwellers)
Meaning of love (if Google doesn't know, who does?)
Spring Awakening soundtrack (love it)
Boondock Saints (must be watched periodically)
ACIM (go ahead, you search it now. Worth your time.)
Academy KA14 guitar (this search helped me learn that just because something is old and kind of rare, that doesn't mean it has any monetary value. Sort of like me.)
Define: dessicated (did you know you can get definitions in Google using this technique? Do you know "dessicated" is a real word and not just something a drunk would say?)
Richard Greenberg (more obsession with reading plays)
Icon Gel Hair Wax (recommended for when you want your hair to be re-shapeable like Play Doh)
How a 4-way stop works (I am trying to help more of my fellow Americans understand this concept)
O Mio Babbino Caro (a little Italian opera right out of left field)
Tina Fey (she had a good year)
Sarah Palin ( not such a good year perhaps)
Parallels between the crash of '29 and the crash of '08 (an intellectually curious day!)
The ramifications of a nuclear Iran (wow, I must have eaten some brain food for a change!)
Screw Loose Change (the ultimate "piss off" for the 9/11 conspiracy nuts)
Idaho Vandal Cheerleaders (What? Huh? I admit I have no idea why I searched for this. Apparently not one of the intellectually curious days.)

So what have we learned today?
1. You can track back your life and times by reviewing your Google search terms.
2. The world is a big, wonderful, complex place and there's just an awful lot to know.
3. There is some kind of neuron pinball game going on in my head.

Neuron pinball. I think I will Google that.

Comments

Unknown said…
Hmmmm, if I Google neuron pinball, your blog comes up first...what did I learn today? The world really IS flat.
January 18, 2009 at 6:36 PM
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