The Tao of Google

Last October, exploring my own befuddlement over these troubling times -- George W. Bush, the death of Paul Wellstone, an impending war -- I wondered how I could check the rest of the world’s emotional pulse. What’s ticking us off? Where are we finding elation? Is everyone as glee-filled and optimistic as, say, the president’s approval ratings suggest? I started typing phrases into the search engine Google, wondering if poverty or corporate corruption -- or maybe the high price of gas -- would top the list of psyche-rattling ire. Sifting through more than three billion personal home pages, corporate websites and chatrooms, I didn't find what I was looking for.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that the search strand "It makes me angry when…" turned up websites for every family therapist, school counselor, and child-development guru this side of Cape Horn. Wisely, I suppose, they’re all advocating the clear, calm expression of one’s emotional states: "It makes me angry when you don’t appreciate my cooking," and the like. Not the kind of visceral, frypan-chucking anger I was hoping for. So I keyed in the more vinegary, "It pisses me off when…" and found a jackpot of crass, bold, sometimes poignant views. In a Studs Terkel sort of way, it was better snapshot of the world: a crazy collage of ire and irony, inanity and humanity.

• I get pissed off when all the construction workers are gawking and all, but today I smiled back at every guy who smiled at me.
• I get pissed off when the rules are changed in the middle of the game, especially when these new rules are screwing me.
  
• I get pissed off when progressives take Ithaca for granted and ignore its problems.
  
• I get pissed off when my hubby lies to me.
  
• I get pissed off when someone wins simply because they meet the EOE check-boxes on the application form.
  
• I get pissed off when my cane falls over.
  
• I get pissed off when people ask me how her weight is.
  
• I get pissed off when people who know nothing about Indonesia judge the country only based on what they hear from the media.
  
• I get pissed off when I have to drive 4 and a half hours to Queenstown and find out the reports were a load of shit.
  
• I get pissed off when I go in a store and see a guy hiding behind a computer.
  
• I get pissed off when someone takes a piece of fiction and applies it to their own life.
  
• I get pissed off when I read beauty magazines.
  
• I get pissed off when things go bad for the team.
  
• I get pissed off when people talk behind my back, and when I get pissed off I get violent.
  
• I get pissed off when Mark kisses me and calls me a girl.
  
• I get pissed off when people call AIDS a manageable disease.
  
• I get pissed off when people diss Britney Spears
  
• I get pissed off when I’m defending you and you turn on me and start insulting me.
  
• I get pissed off when he asks, "Ba-abe, where do you want me to put these pair of pants? In the closet?"
  
• I get pissed off when I don’t win, so I’m only there if I’m on a winning streak.
  
• I get pissed off when he walks in without knocking.
  
• I get pissed off when I hear about fucking retards going around singing "Light My Fire" by The Doors.

How odd and voyeuristic to be sitting in my living room tapping such personal emotions from, of all places, the public commons of the internet. I was hearing intimate tales I’m not sure I wanted to know told by people I’ll never meet but can’t help wondering about.

And clipping these sentences from their contexts, pinpointing the irritation and butting them against each other in catchy cadence, gives me a disjointed buzz. The specific becomes the archetype, and I think that maybe I understand our species a bit better. Erroneous or not, I'm hooked.

Fancying myself something of a conceptual artist, I continued on. I ran a search for "It makes me happy when…" in hopes of creating emotional parity (and trying to counter my gloomy inclinations). I inserted a range of synonyms like "excited" and "ecstatic," and--hoping to tap into other demographics -- "psyched," "stoked" and, archaically, "jazzed." (Which was silly: what jackass is going to type "I’m jazzed when my new shipment of Harry and David apples arrives!"? ) After my "anger" lesson, I was learning.

I was learning that people who are happy -- or at least those who feel compelled to write about it on their web sites -- aren’t interesting.

So I tried a more cynical route, the avenue of emptiness and isolation we can all relate to. What does it feel like to be ignored, maligned, erased? How does it feel to be not taken at your word?

Fine, apparently.

• Nobody believes me when I tell them I’m Gary Coleman’s cousin.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them the Sims can give the finger when they get mad and tired enough.
  
• Nobody believes me, when I tell them that I’m not a professional but "only" an amateur-massager!
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them it’s a $75 guitar.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that we pull the BBQ pit behind a truck, so here’s the picture to prove it.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them they won’t be stuck.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them I was swatting a bug.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that my cat has fangs... well, he does..
  
• Nobody believes me when i tell them Houston TX was a great place to live.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that HMV stands for His Master’s Voice
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them I hear a strange noise.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them he has never had mac and cheese, or hotdogs, and has only had two slices of pizza in his lifetime
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that we do a "perfect" shirt and deliver everything on time.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that what we have is real.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that it took three days for me to lose my virginity.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them I grew up in Texas.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them I’m a fast healer and feel great already.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them my favorite amp is a Peavey.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them that I used to be a lawyer.
  
• Nobody believes me when I tell them how loud that fucker is.
  
• I am Mexican. Nobody believes me when I tell them though since I’m so damn pallid.

So I didn’t peer into the bared soul of America, and maybe the internet isn't a pixelated potpourri of exposed longing, rage, and tenderness. But I conjured some pretty vivid mental images. I wish I could see the beater pickup truck putt-putting along with a monster barbecue pit in tow (I imagine it comically large, like a postcard from Idaho that shows a baked potato Photoshopped onto the bed of a semi trailer). I wish I could hear a developmentally disabled choir belting out Jim Morrison’s verse about "no time to wallow in the mire" at glee-club volume. Just how pale do Mexicans get? Someday these stories should be written down. Of course, they have, and I’ve picked them apart, rather clinically. Maybe better stories could be forged. But, people being what we are (and truth being stranger than fiction), probably not.