Have you seen your first end of year montage yet? It’s the second last week of the year, and the only way most of us can believe that is to look back on the year that was. The traditional end of year montage is made up of some sport, celebrity deaths, tragic accidents, great triumphs – events and people that made us feel.
Feelings create actions, and one of our first actions is to search. To research, to seek, to learn, to enquire. To find out the truth and make sense of our feelings. When a triumph makes us feel pleasure, we want to know more, to connect with the source of the positive feeling. If a tragedy makes us feel fear or anger, we want to know why and understand the source of the negative feeling. Our feelings drive us, and we engage with services which help us to manage our feelings and inform our actions.
Every year my favourite end of year montage, or wrap up, is brought to us by Google. Nobody can remind us of our feelings like Google, because they logged, sorted, grouped and analysed the words that we use to represent the things that make us feel, mirroring it back to us in a video montage… and data.
https://www.google.com.au/trends/2014/
We can’t lie to Google. It knows what we want because we share our feelings with it in the form of keywords and search phrases. We use Google to seek the truth. Our somewhat dangerous assumption of anonymity has made us free to ask questions which we might not ask a fellow human being. We don’t vent to Google, because it doesn’t understand anything that isn’t a question which can be answered.
We simplify our ideas when we ask Google a question, refining our thoughts and considering the key point of our enquiry. We use the results to learn, to adapt and to ask new questions. We trust Google to give us answers to our questions, which is why the Google end of year wrap up is my favourite. It not only informs my work, satisfies the data-geek within and gives us a deep insight into the human race. It also shows us balance, and in the montage of intensity there is bound to be a single moment of pure joy that resonates with you and gets you ready for a celebration of love, life and really good wine.
Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays, Best Wishes and Cheers to you all.
2014 – My Searches & My Feelings
This year, a whole bunch of my searches were inspired by Auntie feelings! Early in the year I searched a lot for plaster and instructions on how to create a giant “1” for her birthday. Last week I searched for Peppa Pig videos and a few months before that we found all of the songs from The Little Mermaid. It made me sad that she didn’t like them. Even Kiss Da Girl and Under Da Sea!!
But she did like Sebastian, so I searched for pictures of Lobsters and shells and a few days ago I purchased a poster full of sea creatures for her room, found via Google.
Blowing Kisses
Blowing Kisses
There was the wonderful feelings that come with being an Auntie, but it was also a milestone year with my 20 year high school reunion. 20 years since 1994, my year 12 senior year, also means 20 years since the suicide of Kurt Cobain from a gunshot and 20 years since the passing of my step-Uncle Geoff from testicular cancer. They were born in the same year.
I searched for fashion, music, old friends, song lyrics… all inspired by the feeling of nostalgia. I searched for gifts inspired by love, instructions inspired by curiosity, inspiration inspired by procrastination and information inspired by doubt.
Now, I can see those feelings logged and sorted alongside the feelings of my fellow Googlers into a series of data sets which we can use to better understand ourselves.
Technology. It’s my christmas miracle 🙂