Fail better.

There's something to growing up with the internet.

I often joke that Google is my external brain, but there is some truth to that. A question? What's the difference between strength training and toning? What congressional district do I live in? How long's the drive from Indianapolis to Vancouver? It's never hard to find the answer.

But can you imagine growing up like that? What's college like, what's a period, what do people mean when they say "blow job"? A browser, some key strokes and few clicks later and you have "answers." Just like that, an entire generation.

I googled my way through adolescence. And I don't think this is (entirely) a bad thing; I suspect I'm more independent and less awkward for it. Either that or the opposite is true, and I'm retconning the hell out of this. But never mind that. Our pasts are too fuzzy (read: painful) to sift through anyway. I'm more concerned with the present.

Now I wonder at how search engines have impacted my world-view. How many times have I lost my keys and felt my fingers tingle with the impulse to run a google search for them? As if the entire world were indexed for my purposes?

I don't actually feel that way. Not exactly. But even now, with more than enough friends (never let me suggest otherwise) to examine those really tough questions in life, I sometimes find myself slouching in front of my computer, trying to formulate just the right key words to dig me out of another mistake.