Pride or insecurity
Rather than make a real human connection
Instead of asking for help
I wait until I am alone
And google my problems.
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Rather than make a real human connection
Instead of asking for help
I wait until I am alone
And google my problems.
Fresh Hell 
Sarah,
I nominate you for head of that club of which so many of us are members! Google is amazing that way, though! ~ M
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Haha, technically Google is asking for help from people, just from strangers. And you get a million shallow responses back, instead of having an in-depth discussion with someone you care about. Our world is weird…
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The downward spiral destination of this tendency taken to the extreme, preferred and embraced and ultimately revered above the human connection, is that data rules, the expert rules, the masses rule. In the end what your own mother or cousin or friend contributes or suggests or even truly knows is anecdotal and worthless, the voice of one against so many who weighed in. In the end the human diminishes. In the end the human is devalued and dismissed. And something very precious is lost.
There is no study, no science, no crowd to back up what I have just said. I make no claims otherwise. It is simply the observation of one human.
Can you tell you hit a nerve? 🙂 One person in my world who used to talk to me, who used to seek my input, no longer does because of extreme googling. I have been told directly that anything I might say based my experience, my having raised five kids and lived through what I have lived through, is anecdotal. It’s heavy on my heart because she used to talk to me, used to value what I added to the conversation.
We all use google sometimes. It’s useful, handy, convenient and yes, I agree with Mona, amazing too. I so appreciate your observation though, your understanding that you are occasionally substituting one thing for another. I appreciate your inner check-and-balance, which is good, very good, because we should all watch our own behavioral changes, be on the lookout for missteps, remember to assess now and then. But I don’t think you are at risk of taking this tendency to a hurtful place. You, poet extraordinaire that you are, give words to things that others feel but have no words for. You make pictures with words and an ink pen, you get people talking about things that matter. You could not do these things with the insight and acuity that you do if you didn’t listen to real humans with a careful ear, if you didn’t watch them with a careful eye. I am a fan of YOU, real human that you are 🙂
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I said it to Mona, but I should have said it to you. Technically Google IS asking for help from people, but you get a million shallow responses back, instead of having an in-depth discussion with someone you care about, which would further and deepen your relationship with that person. I think both are valuable but a real conversation is priceless compared to what Google can give.
It’s interesting. Google is supposed to be this compendium of All Human Knowlege. But let’s say I want to learn something (e.g. what life was like during a certain time period in history), I’ll go and read one article. Then I’ll go and read another article, and another. After a while a pattern will emerge: the same facts will keep surfacing over and over again. And I realize that people aren’t sharing their own knowledge… they’re just all copying and pasting and rewriting from the same source material, whatever the first webpage was that was created on this topic. The Indo-European webpage from which all others were born… you can see it if you squint your eyes.
And then I think to myself, This is stupid. I need to get and read a book about this so I can have an in-depth perspective and find out something NEW.
And I never do.
I’m sad your friend doesn’t talk to you like she used to. I mean sure, everything is anecdotal, especially when it comes to raising kids, etc. Does she really think Google is better? Nothing compares to actually communicating to somebody on a topic, because both of you can change your minds and come to a new conclusion due to your interaction. You can see things you never would have noticed before, because your friend knows you so well and can see through your BS.
Well, I’m preaching to the choir, aren’t I?
Big hugs ❤
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Thank you kindly. Yes she does think google is better — the collective body of knowledge, the indisputable data, all that. Of course some things warrant serious research, and I don’t have any problem with that. I don’t think I present my position as the be-all-end-all. But you hit the nail on the head and remind me of the kind of dialog in which each party says their bit, listens carefully to the other person saying their bit, responds with that in mind, etc, like climbing a ladder of understanding. Each person gains, each person gives. The ideal! It happens now and then in this world — in dialog as well as in other things 🙂
I discovered exactly what you are talking about when I was writing my book. Every source kept repeating the same basic info — and some of it was downright wrong, but they kept consulting the wrong info and repeating it until people believed it and the management even used it in gift shop merchandise 🙂 Same thing happened with the story/facts about who invented the ice cream cone!
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Indisputable data my ass! I guess it depends on her sources, but… really. Google, indisputable. Pfft.
Yes! You’ve seen the same thing in oral history! How cool! It kind of freaks me out a little bit though. How do we really determine the indisputable data in a world of such changeable facts? Does it even matter anyway?
I think the Internet is like… you know how oral history gets passed down, generation to generation, and gets slightly boiled down and refined and garbled and smoothed and perfected with each retelling, over each generation. The Internet is like that, except it happens laterally. Instead of going through lots of generations over time, it gets telephoned through lots of people, filtered through them in a very very short time, to the same effect. That is to say, it’s not the time which changes a story; it’s the number of minds through which it’s been filtered.
I might be off topic, but I think it’s cool. I realized it when I heard how Slenderman, who was created on a creepy photoshop forum, actually became a bona fide religion to a couple of gullible girls. He’s a new god. Tracking his evolution from inception to incarnation was pretty crazy; it only took like, ten years before people started believing in him.
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Sarah,
Why ya interested in Slenderman, woman? He’s kind of like the Blair Witch, is he not? I know nothing about either, but I’m not sure I wanna know. I can’t watch the truly scary stuff. I get nightmares fairly easily. Yes, I’m a wimp. Except when I’m not. Happy Halloween!
And Patricia, Dear Heart, I’m so sorry to hear that someone hurt you like that! YOU matter! Your opinion and experience and voice and being matters. Where do you think we get data from, anyway? Researchers gather information based on a few thousand voices in a study looking at one specific detail of a much larger issue and then they do their math stuff/statistical analysis and then decide whether their findings are significant or not. There is always going to be some kind of bias to the research. There’s always going to be exceptions to the research results. Ultimately, each person is different and will respond a smidge to a big swath of difference to the stimulus that is being tested and analyzed. What they do is come up with what/how the majority responded to what’s being tested. Clinical data will never have the warmth or context or will even be able to tell you whether you’re on track or not. Someone you trust discussing things with you can help tremendously in all those areas including what works for them in any given situation. That doesn’t mean objective data and research doesn’t have its place, but it’s foolish to think that data can be used as a one-size-fits-all answer to very human, very individual problems. I’d use curse words right about now because you sound like this really hurt you, and that pains me, but I’m trying to cut back. Just know that I’ll always value your opinion and I’ll always value you. You and Sarah. Lille, too! 🙂
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Sarah and Mona,
Thank you both for listening, for letting me put this card on the table. The whole thing reminds me a little of the old Bonnie Raitt song I Can’t Make You Love Me — reworked into I Can’t Make You Value Me (which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in the same way with that added syllable and all, but you have the idea :)). I am sad, sad, sad that any conversation with this woman, which used to include What do you think about X? has been reduced to superficialities because that is safe. She won’t get in trouble if she doesn’t engage me and I generally won’t engage a person who has sent such clear signals of not wanting to be engaged. But you both make the very good point that the stuff on the internet comes from humans in the first place — many humans — and it’s been sifted through, telephone-gamed, reworked, morphed. And in that process both weird things can happen and good things can happen. I get that. It’s the personal sting that I feel (yes, it really hurt, still does, because the voices of those unknown humans on the internet matter more than mine). You both have helped tremendously though, helped me see the bigger picture, and I am very grateful! 🙂
And to your question, Sarah — is any data indisputable? How can it be — we can’t and don’t know everything, and if we did or could, we would not be able to incorporate it all into a coherent anything. The only indisputable fact I can think of is that change will come — that’s indisputable. Some changes are just harder than others to swallow.
Thank you both so very much.
Patricia
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<3<3<3
Every one of us who have your considerate, positive, kind heart to reflect against is lucky to have such a resource. She's lost more than she probably realizes.
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And I message my like 😊
Sent from my iPhone
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haha, I’ll send a big impersonal Thumbs-Up icon right back atcha!
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And I will acknowledge that thumbs up with my digital okie dokie
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Pfft! Digital okie dokie really needs to be a thing
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