Life is Fleeting
The Internet Is Not
I am not one to Google myself. I did once, when I was bored over the summer. I popped up, along with Laura Hurwitz of Illinois, a psychologist with an impressive website, and Laura Hurwitz my niece, who competed in a Tough Mudder event. While interesting to note, I decided nothing was to be gained by trolling my search results or the search results of any other Laura Hurwitzes.
Then, a few days ago, one of my students came to class and told me she’d Googled me. It struck me that I’ve written some disgruntled blog posts, so when I got home I did a quick hygiene check of what I’ve put out there to make sure it didn’t contain something that could get me fired or killed.
What turned up first is my old blog on Tumblr, a platform I stopped writing on many months ago, followed by me on Twitter, which I haven’t used in years. There’s a list of books I’ve written, and a black-and-white photo of me with my dad on my wedding day. But Googled me is as distant from living, breathing me as Laura Hurwitz the psychologist in Illinois. I have been busy living a life and doing stuff, but my online presence is as stuck in the past as a mastodon in the La Brea Tar Pits. This troubled me for around five seconds before I turned my attention to stalking houses on Zillow, then called it a day.
Later, I mulled this over. Googled me is an imperfect archive. I’m a freeze-frame on my wedding day, or some other younger, cooler iteration of myself, the author of books I wrote years ago and an abandoned blog. These signifiers of who I am are preserved for internet eternity, which I’m guessing lasts about 10 years.
Omar Kayyam famously observed “the moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on.” The moving finger is life, the movement of which is forward and constant. Life defies algorithms. I could tell you that you’ll find me on some media platform, but the fact is I’m gone before you get there.
My most recent writing comes closest, and here, the ashes of the campfire are still warm, but in this moment in the real world, this Laura Hurwitz is about to finish her coffee and go for a run.