Googles for meaning

Coming back from Texas is always a little like getting shoved back into the swimming pool. There's the hit of the cold water, a sudden inability to breathe, and some flailing of the arms. Eventually I relax, though, and remember: oh yeah, I know how to swim in this.

But right now, I'm still in shock, still eating the leftover turkey my mother bagged and wrapped for me before I left, still forgetting what it's like to be a son.

And during this transition, weird thoughts spring up in the rift marks. Who am I? What am I doing here? What's the meaning of life, or at least the meaning of my life?

I'm turning to Google, the presence to whom we 21st century dwellers make our supplications heard. Help me, Google. How many times a day is that thought uttered, either silently or -- in the worst of panicked moments -- out loud?

Googling "meaning of life" is a bit too vague. I'm not going to play that game.

But I will play this game: Googling "what is life but" (quotes required) and seeing how people fill in the blank. How would you?

Here are the top hits that make sense:

1. "a series of small things" (source)


2. "the attempt of human beings to be happy and contented in a world with which all its ill, has a mass of sun and waters, of trees and flowers, of beauty and love" (source)


3. "a play in which everyone acts a part until the curtain comes down" (source)


4. "the sum total of all our little moments" (source)


5. "the angle of vision... what a man is thinking of all day" (source)


6. "a series of shocks" (source)


7. "the flower or the fruit which falls when ripe" (source)

I like the more developed among these, the others not so much. #2 and 7 in particular have the right feel to salve my wound. Good thoughts to have as the new year rolls around.

One more exercise: Googling "what are we but". Here again are the top hits that apply:

1. "the intersections of race, ethnicity and culture" (source)


2. "alone, lost inside our houses" (source)


3. "intrinsically irrational beings with no hope for finding happiness at all" (source)


4. "fictions of God" (source)


5. "a shadow of a shadow" (source)


6. "the sum of our experiences, our interactions with the people around us, and the character embedded in our genes" (source)

Wow, dear reader. Stew is making himself even bluer than he was when he started writing this post. #2, 4, and 5 make me want to steal antidepressants. Those are not happy thoughts to bring into the new year. I'd group #3 with them but the almost clinical assessment -- and the irony that the author, that none of us, can speak objectively about such a thing -- make it humorous.

I'm going to carry #7 off the first list with me today. I can live with being a fruit. (You girls can be flowers.)