Wednesday, April 24, 2002


Doc writes:

Our little boy, age 5, brought home a tadpole from preschool yesterday. While we were sitting outside looking at the stars in the evening, he said "I love my tadpole." I told him as gently as I could that the little creature's chances of survival in a cup of pondwater parked in the bathroom were not large. He grew quiet.

"Are you sad?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Are you afraid your tadpole is going to die?"

"Yes." After a pause, he added, "What can we do?"

"We could let him go out in the stream out back." This wasn't an encouraging idea. The "stream" is a trench that runs between culverts. And it's dry. This is Southern California.

"Look on Google," he said. As it happened we had a laptop with us, which we were using to track satellites in the sky. So I looked up "tadpole care." There was an abundance of advice. As I began to read it out loud, I saw the kid was asleep. Now it's the middle of the night and I'm boiling lettuce for a pet the size of a booger.

Hope it works. [Doc Searls Weblog]

This is why we love the web.  In less than 200 words, Doc has told me a story that is packed with meaning and information.  Because of this story, I now know:

  1. Doc Searls, a man I'n not real likely ever to meet in meatspace, but one whose work (insofar as I know it) I admire, is a full-fledged Human Being.  In fact, he's Dad to a five-year-old, just like I am.  I think that's cool.
  2. If my kid ever brings home a tadpole, I now know that I can get some advice from the Web, and that Google will help me find it.  (Of course, I'll do just as well if I just call up my own Dad.  Come to think of it, he's likely to be the source of the tadpole!)
  3. There's a fantastic site called Heavens Above that will be an enormous boon when my kid's interests reach skywards.

I not only have gained information, but I've also been touched and amused by a very short, very well-written snippet of narrative.  All of this, first thing in the morning, because I opened up my web browser, and my default start page is my Radio Userland news aggregator page.

Weinberger has it exactly right:

Now, if connecting and caring are what make us into human people, then the Web - built out of hyperlinks and energized by people's interests and passions - is a place where we can be better at being people.

And that is what the Web is for.

And it's why we love the Web.


8:54:24 AM