Site icon John Battelle's Search Blog

Happy Birthday, Pop


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My father, Richard Battelle, turned 74 today. Happy Birthday, Pop!

I don’t blog about family much, and today I realized, as I snapped this rather out of focus shot on my phone, that perhaps I should from time to time. If I truly believe in this whole Database of Intentions and search thing, I realize that this site, which is pretty much my main outpost on the web, should memorialize folks like my Dad. Up until this post, he didn’t show up in Google. Life is precious, and he deserves an entry or two in the Grand Index. From my book:

What does it mean, I wondered, to become immortal through

words pressed in clay—or, as was the case here, through words

formed in bits and transferred over the Web? Is that not what every

person longs for—what Odysseus chose over Kalypso’s nameless immortality—

to die, but to be known forever? And does not search offer

the same immortal imprint: is not existing forever in the indexes

of Google and others the modern-day equivalent of carving our stories

into stone? For anyone who has ever written his own name into

a search box and anxiously awaited the results, I believe the answer

is yes.


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