Search History

SOME PEOPLE GO RUNNING or meditate; they recite mantras or affirmations, carry pictures of the saints. My brother used to keep one of those mini Zen rock gardens in his room as a teenager, turning over his thoughts as he raked the sand back and forth. But for me, there’s nothing like pouring anxious feelings into an empty search bar, posing questions too big for any one person to answer.

Some questions I’ve asked Google, between the ages of eleven and twenty-six, in roughly chronological order:

Why did my cat die? How do I talk to people?

• Why don’t my parents understand me?

• Who shot JFK?

• Do I have a brain tumor?

• Why isn’t love enough?

• Will I ever stop grieving?

• Why are there seasons?

• Why do cats purr?

• How do I know what I’m worth?

• Will I ever be a good writer?

• Should I be studying philosophy?

• Why was Nietzsche such an asshole?

Why do people kill themselves?

• How large is the blast radius of a nuclear bomb?

• Does anyone’s family ever change?

• What is the difference between guilt and shame?

• Why did Elvis meet Nixon?

• How do I let go of anger?

• What if I hate my job?

• Why are avocados so weird?

• Am I having a quarter-life crisis?

• How deep is the deepest part of the ocean?

• Why can’t I want what I’m supposed to want?

• How many times does a blue whale’s heart beat per hour?

• Why?

This searching is the only prayerful thing I do, though I admit that as a form of prayer, Google search is problematic. Christianity emphasizes that the purpose of prayer is not to find answers, assuage existential anxiety, or to get things for ourselves. Instead, it’s a means of knowing God, something closer to surrender. Through knowing and accepting God, we can begin to know and be at peace ourselves.

But maybe Google isn’t Christian; maybe it’s Buddhist. Everyone in the internet-connected world is familiar with Google’s uncluttered homepage: a single, rectangular search field with two buttons underneath, fixed in the middle of a white screen. Google’s colorful logo—originally designed to evoke toy building blocks—appears above the bar. The word “search” appears only once on the page, in the left button below the search field, though you can find it again by clicking on the square “app grid” button at top right, a feature added in 2013. Google has been praised for the minimalism of its homepage since its inception.

The Google homepage has been called “Zen-like” more times than