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:
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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.
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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!)
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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
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