The Dopamine High of Triviality

It was important...

No.

It was absolutely imperative to know, at precisely the moment the question entered my mind, and not a moment later: just how many species of venomous snakes are native to South Carolina anyway?

After all, I did not know. Having taken for granted that such information relative to my home state had, at one point or another, found itself lodged within the hippocampus, I found myself literally dumbfounded and, if truth be told, somewhat embarrassed that I did not know venomous snakes in South Carolina are not limited to the volatile timber rattlesnake, or the shy copperhead, as they are in West Virginia.

Ah, the wonders of the modern age. I've become a canine in a high-tech cage, salivating at the bell. Inquiry comes just a short time before answer, a time extended only by the limits of my dexterity. The faster my thumbs work across a glass screen, the more quickly I get my reward: a dopamine high of knowledge. Or, at the very least, information.

Trivial? Hardly.

(If you must know -- and I think we've established I could not blame you if so -- there are five venomous species of snakes in South Carolina. Like West Virginia, we have timber rattlers and copperheads, along with cottonmouths, pygmy rattlers, diamondbacks and, just to add some flair, tiny and elusive coral snakes. See? Don't you feel better?)

But, wait. Let's back up, to the moment before my curiosity was satiated. At least when it came to Palmetto State pit vipers, anyway. Above you'll see a digital record of my five previous "fixes," all recorded somewhere among the petabytes living comfortably in windowless warehouses in places like Council Bluffs, Iowa and Quilicura, Chile. Or, to use a term no doubt coined by PR flacks, "the cloud."

Each inquiry, however random, served a specific purpose. To wit:

• With the radio on in the background, the DJ referred to "Just Dance," by Lady GaGa, as a "classic" song from "way back." Just how many years in the past has a song to have been released to be regarded as a "classic" from "way back?" The answer, as it turns out, is 10 years.

• Or earlier, at lunch time, when I decided that not only was I hungry but that I wanted to satisfy that hunger with tacos and, thus, needed to know where I might find a taco joint near me. Inquiry, meet answer: White Duck Taco Shop.

• Also important? Proving oneself right. My thesis, in conversation with friends, was that it is highly unlikely the majority of broken necks result in death. Paralysis, yes. But how can one argue that if one were to hypothetically break one's neck, at least in some generic accident in which the specifics of said accident are not stated, that it would result in one's immediate death? Hard to say, but it appears most victims of spinal cord injury -- and we're talking 85 percent here -- survive their predicament. (Disclaimer: I had only a cursory glance at the cornucopia of information offered up by the internet gods.)

• My parents are planning a visit in the next couple of months. My dad and I share in common an interest, one in his case that borders on obsession, in sport fishing. Knowing at some point in 2018 the Bassmaster's Classic -- the Super Bowl of competitive bass fishing -- is to be held this year on the lake where I live, it seemed only natural to discover if it were taking place during the window of time in which my parents wanted to visit. It is. And so they are visiting. And so we are attending. Thanks, internet!

• We are living at a time when we will soon have the answer to one of life's great questions: what if Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso met again, more than 30 years after the epic final of the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament? (This opens up a whole host of other questions, namely, did Ali (with an "i") marry that football player from UCLA? Let's hope the new show, "Cobra Kai," addresses this key point.) New show, you say? One to scratch a nostalgic itch remaining after Star Wars prequels and sequels, a Star Trek reboot and a series of Transformers movies (to say nothing of a planned Masters of the Universe film? Yes. This new show is set in the Karate Kid Shared Universe (KKSU.) The answer to whether Johnny and Daniel will hug it out in 2018 will remain, at least for now, elusive. But what I could -- and did -- discover, is whether my old college buddy, Chuck, knew that such a show is in post-production. And the best way to tell him was via a shortened link, texted to him without explanation, and to await his response. He was, in a word, excited:

It's real, Chuck.

One, the pull of simplicity. The desire to shuffle off this technological coil and embrace the Luddite legacy, sans violence, on a farm near gently rolling mountains, rising with the sun in the morning and, absent electricity, going to bed as it disappears in the evenings, the only hint of technology the contrails appearing tightly across the sky before dissipating, ever thicker over time, as the travelers aboard the source of their polluting remnants are whisked away to some far off place while watching in-flight entertainment, courtesy of 30,000-foot WiFi, numbing their minds from the painful realities of the modern age. I chuckle with self-importance at their lemming-like banality.

Or, absent that fantasy, living a life full of the unbridled joy of knowing, for example, that $10 in 1975 is worth $45.50 today. That Nikola Tesla was 86 when he died. That tiger stripes are present not only on their fur, but on their skin as well. And that all of that information is accessible at a moment's notice, spurred by the mere hint of curiosity.

Surely there is some middle ground.