Finding God via Google

My name is Laura, and I am a research geek.

Thankfully, when working and writing for other people, it is a job requirement. When the topic is interesting, I become lost in my work, digging deeper, cross-referencing and sub-referencing until my legal pad is full.

Prior to the Internet, local libraries were my second home. I loved the card catalog system (the “old” kind) when you could flip through neatly typed index cards held in place with a steel drawer pole. Using micro-fiche screens until my contacts dried out, printing out articles that stunk of pungent black ink, losing myself in the stacks of books in the reference section: I loved the scents, I loved the silence, I loved the academia of it all.

While still a patron of our local library, the Internet has brought the world to my laptop, making my research convenient, easy and dangerous, because courtesy of Google, I can quickly and effectively look up ANYTHING (to a research geek, ladies and gentlemen, this is crack).

Case in point: Roughly two months ago I hit a horrible speed bump on Writer’s Lane: My gas tank was empty, all wheels were flat and out of alignment, and I couldn’t flag down a coherent idea to save my butt. I was blank and I was under deadline.

I threw in a load of laundry. I tried to review my notes. I ate way too much rice pudding. I washed the cat. Nothing. Less than nothing. Screwed.

I sat back down at the computer and Googled “God help me” (what could it hurt?). The search brought up various religious sites, prayer suggestions, and some rather unusual YouTube suggestions. Still nothing rattled in my empty head – even my internal and never-ending “To Do” list loop tape was silent.

But then I wondered, who else Googled God for help? Okay, at least the reference geek was returning. As it turned-out, the approximate 12-month average of user queries for the keyword phrase “God Help Me” on Google search was 33,100 worldwide, according to the Google Adwords keyword search tool.

Really? In related searches, 7.4 million people Googled “heaven”, 3.35 million typed “gods”, 2.74 million requested “the god”, 1.5 million “god is”, and the top- five list rounded-out with a tie, with 1.2 million searches for both “bible verses” and “prayers.”

It gave me pause. Millions of people worldwide, asking for God’s help via Google. What were they asking for? Guidance, direction, assistance, peace, help for a loved one, a cure for cancer, making it through just one more day?

I felt like a jerk, Googling “God help me” for writer’s block, upon discovering so many others I thought might be looking for help for more needful and important things. I went back to my notes and my laptop, and forced-out a terrible first draft. With time and distance from my work, I knew the mental fog would clear and my project deadline would be met, work ethic and standard for personal excellence intact.

But the damn search results continued to niggle at the back of my brain. Were those many people lost and hurting? I didn’t want to think so, but these were hard, factual numbers. My stats teacher in grad school always used to remind us that “figures lie and liars figure,” but even this favorite memory brought me little solace.

A few weeks later, I was on a writing tear. Words flew from my fingertips and my thoughts were clear and concise. My conscience felt clear and the voices in my head were entertaining as Hell (for sake of mental health reasons, let’s just agree to call them my Muses).

And then it hit me like a lightning bolt. Laughing out loud, I returned to the Google Adwords keyword search tool and typed in five letters, which returned 13.6 million hits for the approximate 12-month average of user queries for the key word….

B-O-O-B-S.

The moral of this story is don’t take yourself or life too seriously, because apparently figures do lie, and some must have better figures than others.