Knowing What to Ask
At the risk of sounding more get-off-my-lawn-y than usual, I want to lament the demise of research using books and paper.
Don’t get me wrong – I appreciate the heck out of the internet. Just yesterday I was working on a writing project that took place on a specific date.[1] I started to write about moonlight illuminating something or another, and then I realized that perhaps there wasn’t any moonlight that evening. I said to myself, “Lori, don’t be lazy. Do your research.”[2] So I stopped what I was doing, googled, “what was the phase of the moon on June 1, 2019” and got my answer – there was barely any moon out that night, so I had to rewrite. If I’d had to drive to the library to look at old newspapers on microfiche to make that determination, I wouldn’t have done it. My desire to stop being lazy ends at having to get out of my chair.
I also like being able to resolve family arguments in less than a minute by using our smart phones (always handy) or Alexa. We don’t even have to touch the devices. I can just say “Hey Google – is Angie Dickinson still alive?”[3]
I can find out exactly what I need to know in a matter of seconds. Truly miraculous, that. What I can’t find, however, is things that aren’t exactly what I need to know but are more interesting and, sometimes, more relevant.
I was the kind of kid[4] who loved reference books. Back in the pre-internet, pre-video game era when I went to elementary school and saber-toothed tigers prowled the suburbs, I could spend hours thumbing through the dictionary or my set of child’s encyclopedias.[5] I have memories of annoying the grownups around me who were always being interrupted by my cries of “Look at this!”
The thing is, I only know what I know. I’d like to think I’m pretty well-read and broad minded, but I’ve still only experienced a teensy portion of what’s in the world. I can only formulate questions that are based on what I suspect is out there. How can I ask about things I’ve never heard of? How can I ask without knowing what to ask?
The fun part of research is discovery. Getting my questions answered is just part of the process. But finding gems on pages I merely thumbed through to get where I was going? That’s eye-opening. I had no idea there were chicken beauty contests out there, and I would never have found out had I not stumbled on it on the way to somewhere else. I still irritate the grownups around me by randomly starting sentences with, “Did you know…?” I like sharing interesting things.
Interesting things I didn’t know to look for.
The internet puts blinders on you. You only see the answers to your
questions. It doesn’t help if you don’t
know what to ask.
[1] June 1, 2019
[2] I always hear the phrase “do your research” in Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice, because he said that once in a Sherlock episode, and it stuck with me for incomprehensible reasons.
[3] Answer: yes. She’s 90, but yes.
[4] And, honestly, the kind of adult.
[5] Highlighting the rank hypocrisy of what I’m saying here, I just spent 20 minutes on eBay searching “vintage children’s encyclopedias” to see if I could find the same set I had. All I remembered specifically was that they were yellow. I found them! They were the 1969 edition of the Golden Book Encyclopedia. (Yes, I bought them — $25 for the set of 14. I had to. The nostalgia was about to kill me.)
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