When No One Answers

One of the best things about the internet is that you have access to 5.35 billion brains. (That’s how many people were on the internet in 2024.) Even if you can’t remember something, such as the name of a book or a restaurant you ate at in 2007, chances are that someone else on the internet read the same book and recognizes the description and can provide a title or lived next door to that restaurant and can provide the name.

I’ve been trying to remember the name of a health center in Massachusetts. I know it was on one of three roads, though it’s gone now. I tried limiting my Google search to Internet pages when I knew it existed. (Did you know you can do this? It’s super weird to see what comes up.) I pored over Google Maps, Apple Maps, all sorts of maps… but I couldn’t find the name.

Not a problem because one of those 5.35 billion brains would remember for me. I posted it on an alumni board populated with people who all lived in the area when I lived in the area. A bunch of people said they knew exactly what I was talking about but couldn’t remember the name. But most people scrolled on by the question and didn’t answer.

It feels strange when the 5.35 billion brain collective fails to bubble up an answer. It makes me feel like maybe I imagined the health center. That makes more sense to me than that so many other people forgot it.