My first thought upon looking at my cell phone and seeing that my iPhone had no service, was that I must need to restart it. When I’m at work, I generally have the WiFi turned off and sometimes Verizon doesn’t work very well within the confines of the building.
I rebooted the phone and the small SOS in the upper right hand of the screen remained. A quick search on my desktop device indicated that there were no reports of local service disruptions, but Verizon users at a distance were claiming issues with the network.
I think I was maybe just a little ahead of the curve on this one.
Occupied by work, I didn’t pick up my phone again for a couple of hours when I was surprised to see I still didn’t have cell phone service. Rechecking the internet revealed that there now was an identified widespread problem and they were working on it.
For me, with home WiFi service provided by a different carrier, this wasn’t a terrible problem, but I wondered how people (like my youngest son) without home WiFi were managing. I considered his dependency upon his phone for communication, but also for entertainment, as he streams programs using his phone, and practical matters like accessing his transportation pass.
When I went to bed a bit before 10:00, the outage, after a very brief mid evening return, was still ongoing. My mind went to the media blackout in Iran…was this an intentional shut down of a network? Was a means of communication and the transmittal of information being purposefully impeded??
I talked myself down, rolled over and mercifully fell asleep.
I awoke in the early morning to see that my phone still was reliant upon WiFi for service. After a quick internet search and found the suggestion to restart my device, which I did. My network service was indeed restored, but now my phone wanted me to update the OS.
My immediate response was, upon reflection, irrational but appropriate for where we’re at as a country – why? What kind of surveillance or AI software was included in this new version? Was this related to the outage?
Crazy, right?
The time we’re living in is scary and chaotic and dark. It feels like we’re on the precipice of something that we may never be able to recover from, a single step from being buried alive. It is as overwhelmingly dystopian as the YA books I’ve been reading for decades.
Do you feel it, too?
Last Wednesday, I attended a Front Parlor story telling event in Troy. One of the participants told a story about his feelings of despair relating to the state of the natural environment.
He described his deep sorrow upon witnessing the dramatic removal of trees in his surroundings, how he has had to reroute himself on his commute to avoid seeing the naked earth that once held sturdy trees, trees he knew were home to countless animals, both large and small. It was too much for him to bear.
He felt himself receding into what he described as a black hole of depression.
Eventually, he recognized that he could not retreat into dark isolation. He knew that he needed to gather himself and find the energy to try to make a difference in this fight against developers intent upon stripping the earth of its natural, and necessary, beauty.
He got involved with community organizations. He worked to develop better policies with regard to land preservation and development. He joined boards and eventually ran for office. He exhausted himself with his efforts to make his town a better home for all.
He climbed out of the hole and arrived at a new place, one in which he understood and accepted that he could not save every single tree, but he could save some of them.
His story struck me and has stayed with me. I am inspired, at this ever so dark time in this country’s history, to work to defend those who are in need of protection. I refuse to be placed in the dark and cut off from people who understand the perilous position this fascist government is doing its best to force us into.
Do not allow yourself to fall into that black hole.
Stand up.
Saving other living beings, just might help you to save yourself.
DelSo 