Don't Worry Be Happy

The other day I sat and watched the presidential debates.  Hold on now, this blog posting has nothing to do with which side owns right.  While I was listening to the flurry of accusations and counter accusations a tune begin to play in my head.  It was Bobby McFerrin’s song, Don’t Worry Be Happy.

   Now I’ve grown to rely on Google.  Why I’d even go so far as to say I trust it.  What I am not so comfortable with is the degree of mindless trust I have grown accustomed to.  While searching for the correct spelling of Bobby McFerrin’s name I Googled the song title and listed with Bobby McFerrin was Bob Marley.  I was confused for a moment; I didn’t think Bob Marley had anything to do with the song? So I followed the thread.  Sure enough, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think the site proclaimed the song was sung by Bob Marley.  Only those familiar with both Bob Marley and the actual rendition of Bobby McFerrin’s classic would you be able to spot the mistake, or at best, misrepresentation.  Otherwise, whoever was doing blind research and unfamiliar with both the song and the artist Bob Marley would be convinced that Bob Marley sang that song; because after all, it was on Google and we all trust Google now don’t we? When I told my wife of this observation she readily jumped to Google’s defense saying it’s not their fault.  I painstakingly pointed out that I was not seeking to fault anyone for my choices, but that by practice (I at least) tend to go with what I find on Google as being authentic and properly vetted, that’s a Pollyannaish approach towards information I know, but by saying that it is the very point I am making. That I think most of us are so busy, and in a hurry to find solutions to our never ending problems, we tend towards accepting what is offered without a lot of consideration, or at least without a reason to doubt.  We do that as an adaptation to the pressure of overwhelming demands.  

        Now before I move on into the basic ingredients of worry, which looks like another post for another day, let me conclude with thinking this incident serves as a caution to swallowing what a favorite candidate says as fact.  Just as my experience with using Google, as reliable as it is in providing word-relevant-search functions, it doesn’t make claim that the reference it finds is correct; that’s my job to sort out.  Then too, just as a candidates statement may or may not be as stated in the context of being absolutely right or absolutely wrong but more often, from a point of view.  That condition is crucial.  If you are unaware of the matrix that produced that point of view, well then we the listeners are prone to be influenced by the reported results without the benefit of the context from which it came.  Just like concluding that Bob Marley sung Don’t Worry Be Happy a song that came out in 1988, seven years after his death.