Notwithstanding my 30+ years of daily meditation, I still receive some subtle hints that I have not quite attained to the selfless, egoless, Buddha-like nature to which, theoretically, I aspire. Evidence along these lines was received today when I began thinking about the wonderful web site that pops up when you type “weapons of mass destruction” into the Google search engine, and click on “I’m feeling lucky”. Try it, you’ll like it (even if you’re a big Bush fan, this is still a great satire).
What this click does, as explained by Google, is that you’re taken directly to the first web page returned by Google for your query. In other words, #1, numero uno, primo, The Page—in the whole wide world of the WWW. A prestigious distinction, no doubt about it. If anyone on Earth is seeking information about that subject, and clicks “I’m feeling lucky,” that sole single special web site is what they will be presented with.
Well, as you can probably guess, my not-so-selfless self couldn’t resist typing in “Brian Hines,” and trying out the “I’m feeling lucky” feature. Knowing how many Brian Hines’ there are in the world, from my previous standard Google searches (another possible indication that a slight shred of ego remains in my psyche, but, come on, admit it, you’ve done that too, haven’t you, searched for yourself?), I doubted that I would appear when I looked for me.
However, what appeared was this. If you don’t believe me, go to Google and try it yourself—but soon, before the search engine changes its mind. I still wasn’t absolutely sure that this Brian Hines was the Brian Hines staring at the RadioUserLand web page, since there was a slight possibility that another Brian Hines could have a Radio weblog. So I sent an email to Brian Hines from Brian Hines, so I could see if this was really me, or someone else (RadioUserLand doesn’t identify the email address to which a message to a weblogger is being sent).
Wow! Brian Hines turned out to be me! In this wonderfully self-reflective act of Internet narcissism, I found myself through the magic of Google’s “I’m feeling lucky.” May self-discovery always be so easy from here on out. If Socrates had had Google back in his days, it would have taken him just a few seconds to “know thyself,” and Plato could have saved himself a lot of time and effort in writing all those dialogues.
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