If you run a search on Google for my name (in quotation marks), ten links will turn up. You’re likely to find among them four links that refer to me as an actress (15 seconds of fame in a fabulous indie film done in 2005 called Big Time). There will also be a link to my Friendster account, which I haven’t properly used in about 3 years. The rest, well… One’s a link to a petition I once signed barely a year out of uni and another’s got my ICQ number on it (read: high school).
The other three links on that first Google results page are most definitely not me. I don’t have a friend named China and I am not a parek (whatever that may mean). I most certainly am not a 58-year-old Safeway cashier in Honolulu and Hilo who is now dead.
So, having embarked upon this voyage of self-discovery, I have… discovered what I am and what I am not. I’ve also learned (or affirmed) the following:
- I’m dated (to say the least).
- I haven’t done much to merit distinction online apart from saying “We saw a movie last Sunday.”
Of course I’m defensive – what’s an online search anyway? I really get into the cop-out justification with talk of how Google searches actually work, and how… Well, I trail off. Because at the end of the day, that’s really all the tired words add up to: a cop-out.
The real question I should be asking myself is after all these years, what have I accomplished? Like really accomplished?
