Sometimes, when I am thinking about something to blog, I sit on the net and research it. At times, I am on the net for hours (not so much lately thanks to a bunch of new tutoring gigs). But my mom used to call my laptop opening in the morning ritual my daily pooja. Poojas are a kind of regular ritual that somehow, magically or not, would allow the praying person to tap into some larger, omnipotent, omniscient entity.
Is that entity the internet?
Really. Play along with me for a moment. There’s websites and RSS feeds and people and blah blah blah. There’s a ton of everything.
If you took all that mess and added a bit of good ole human imagination, you might end up with something that has the ability to be all powerful (in some circles, knowledge is power and the internet can be seen as a kind of knowledge) and all seeing (there’s a ton of webcams on the net).
In sum, the internet is omnipotent and omniscient. So, in one way, my daily pooja is justified. But this daily pooja has given my back the gift of soreness. So other activities are in dire need of ritualization.
But there’s another perspective - the internet as the ultimate bulletin board. We write what we want to write, post what we want to post, and anyone else in the entire world can see it. Or its the ultimate database. Your choice of corporate search engine - Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. - will not matter in the end because its the way your query is designed that can make or break your results.
And these are what matter, what spits out from these searches. It matters because there are thousands, nay, millions, on the net at any one time. What spits out is what they have posted, blogged, copied and pasted, and/or made public. This is the stuff of other people, their time and energy, and on some occasions, sweat and/or tears.
These are properties gone public. Minds rendered readable. Anyone/thing can be anything/one on the internet.
So searching matters. Because you are getting the stuff of anyone and everyone, delivered to you instantaneously.
We might have a tendency to take this instant gratification for granted. But I urge you, do whatever you can to make full use of every search you do.
Make every search your best search.
Whycome all your links point to Wikipedia? Have you read much Hakim Bey? Dig this and this.
In any case, only when you stop searching will you find what lies at your feet, what you are truly looking for. (???)
Left by Harbeer Sandhu on June 23rd, 2006