Fighting from the darkness

I'm going to write this post as fast as I can before the computer explodes or the clock shoots a spring into my eye, given that some kind of technological "bad luck" has taken hold of me. Both of these scenarios feel more than possible.

First, it was my phone. Ten days ago, it jumped out of my pocket. It must have committed suicide or the thief was a smooth operator, because I certainly didn't notice. It was an iPhone, so using the location apps, I found out that some unfortunate person had it two blocks from my house and, despite my pleading messages, was clearly not willing to return it to me. I went through states very similar to grief: first anxiety (THE PHOTOS! THE CONTACTS! THE APPS! MY LIFE!), then despair (no, no, noooo, what am I going to do now? die slowly hugging the charger, remembering it!), followed by hysteria (iCloud!! oh gods, if you're up there, please make sure it's configured correctly and everything is saved) and finally calm and acceptance (yes!! it's all in the cloud, thanks to the gods of the sky who protect it, well, it's nothing, it was just a device, calm down). However, that initial calm turned into a kind of arrogant bravado when I had to talk to my operator (you're going to charge me how many kidneys for another iPhone? all that love you swore to me when we met was a lie and now I mean nothing to you?) and the anger made me decide that, after all, it's not so bad without a phone. The first few days I handled it very well, I think I even appreciated it, I felt happy, light, relieved of the nervous tic of checking my phone every minute and a half, why deny it? I think I even felt a little better than most people for having achieved the most pernicious "quitting smoking" of our time, smartphone addiction. And I think that's precisely when I brought about my ruin.

Cruel destiny, always ready to teach you a lesson when you get cocky (at least it does with me), made me get lost in Madrid driving without live Google Maps in the following days, made me have to beg a guard at the sports palace to lend me a phone so the jacket would reach the gala presenter on time, and made me unable to make online transfers without a mobile signature. But above all, the worst thing of all, was feeling unbearably alone at times without WhatsApps accompanying me. Smartphone addiction is nothing but the addiction to our own solitude; the phone is the television left on in the background of the new century.

I get it now, I admit it, I have already begged another teleoperator to take me in their arms like a good lost sheep. However, the gods, always capricious, have just struck me down again by blocking my computer's email manager program, "Mail" for Mac users or "Outlook" for PCs. Can there be anything crueler? I don't think so... So that's it, defeated and surrendered, I humbly beg for my iPhone to come back, for my Mac to behave as it used to, for Steve Jobs from above to forgive my impertinence and send me a signal from the best Apple technical service in Madrid. I'm sorry, friends, you can't fight from the darkness of absolute incommunication.

The images accompanying the post are from an installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I don't know if the video clearly shows how it's made, with hundreds of lights turning on and off in sync, forming two boxing fighters. Amazing.