Cafeína
Our modern society is nothing but a delicate house of cards
If you don’t live in Portugal or Spain, it will be impossible for you to understand the feelings I’m trying to convey below. And I sincerely hope you never have to deal with it.**
Around 11:30 a.m., the external monitor I have hooked to my laptop, went black while I was editing a video. If the room’s light hadn’t been also shut off, I would think it was a simple connection issue. This type of incident is such a rare phenomenon that at first I thought it was related to my apartment or building and decided to go for a walk with my dog.
Heading to the dog park, I grabbed my phone to share the “morning event” with my wife. Yes, we keep in touch all the time using Signal.
This was the moment I sensed something bigger was happening, but I still thought it was a local thing. My phone data connection was down, and as someone who has worked for 10 years in the telecommunications sector, I know that something like that rarely happens. There are so many contingencies and backups. Something else must be going on.
Maybe the entire neighborhood lost power, and, for some reason, the backup generator at the mobile phone tower closest to me didn’t kick off, I thought, trying to rationalize the situation.
I don’t know if it was instinct, but I immediately sent my wife an SMS: “I have no idea what’s happening, but we lost power and I have no data on my phone”. Again, because of many years of experience, I know how SMS works and how it is such a robust feature of the network.
The SMS took longer than expected to be sent, and that was another undesired sign. Perhaps she didn’t get it. My wife is currently on an overseas trip, so I text a friend here in Portugal: “We lost power and I have no data on my phone. What about you?” “We also lost power and I can barely use data. It looks like it’s affecting the entire country.”
This is when I started having very unwanted thoughts. Instant communication is a crucial element that we take for granted. But if you think about it, modern society has been building on top of this core infrastructure since the invention of the telegraph.
Let me provide you with further context of the situation I found myself in at that moment. Every single appliance and equipment in my house is electric, so there’s no way to cook or take a hot shower. The TV cable is an Ethernet connector that plugs to an Internet hub, so there’s no way to watch the news. I also just sold my car, so no analog radio as well.
To make coffee that day, I used my gas-powered camping stove, which I ironically set up on top of its modern induction successor.
Okay, this is a national situation. A big one because the phones went down. If there’s a positive side to this, it’s that there are probably dozens of people working tirelessly to fix it. Again, little did I know.
Here’s when I decided I had to stay calm. I ate the rest of yesterday’s salad, grabbed my iPod, a book (the paper type), and thought to myself: If this is not solved until 4 p.m., I’ll go buy some extra supplies.
I read for two hours, but at some less engaging parts, I couldn’t help but stop and think about this unusual and unexpected situation. Looking around, I began to see all these wonderful sparks of beauty in the midst of the chaos. From my balcony, where I was reading, I could see all the other people on their balconies, kids playing on the street, and neighbors having fun conversations on their doorsteps.
I remember it now. This is how the world used to be when I was a kid, and even a teenager. This is how people used to behave before mobile phones existed.
Back to reality. “It’s 4 p.m. Time to buy some supplies,” I reminded myself.
I decided to bring my dog to a nice place we usually go together to relax, before heading to the supermarket. If there was one happy soul in the house, that was my dog. Ignorance is bliss.
Going to another dog park on the same day must be winning the dog’s lottery, right? It’s a somewhat hidden micro forest on the way to the supermarket. We stayed there, going back and forth from having fun to relaxing for a while. Then we headed to our main mission.
With no shopping carts available and so many people inside, the outcome couldn’t be different. The number of shelves empty was impressive. To give you some context, something like this never happened during COVID-19. Thankfully, I don’t need much, but that’s one more unwelcoming sign to add to my list, I thought to myself.
On the other hand, I kept seeing all these kids playing on the streets and so many adults in front of houses having conversations face to face and laughing without looking at their phones. Those scenes were absolutely beautiful.
As all of this was going on, I still didn’t have any mobile data and, shortly after texting my wife and my friend in the morning, the SMS system stopped working. If you haven’t guessed yet, there was no calling as well.
All the information I had, was collected here and there, talking to others on the street. But because most people didn’t have access to the rest of the world, it was impossible to know what was really happening. Moreover, all the ones I talked to would start the sentence with something like “I heard that…”
Experience, or perhaps hope, was telling me to keep sending journaling messages to my wife, and so I did. At this point, I was already back to using Signal, where I started narrating everything I was doing. That was the only app I kept opened all the time, hooping for momentarily breaths of the network.
If, for some reason, the network comes up for a few seconds or minutes, she’ll get all the updates. I didn’t know it at that moment, but she was doing the same on her side, and at about 7 p.m., a relieving exchange happened. I saw a burst of messages from her, and the read update pop-up on all the messages I had previously sent here. That would never happen again until the power and network came back to life at about 11 p.m. But at least she was now aware of what was happening to me.
I don’t know if this applies to everyone, but as I grew older, I started understanding that many things in life were never supposed to be about me. At some point, I learned that it’s about what I mean to other people, and that’s why I have to take care of myself. That’s for them! And it goes both ways, of course. Anything we do is always affecting the ones who love us, and this perception became so important to me that I’m constantly more worried about the feelings of the others, the loved ones. It’s like going to a funeral. Our main responsibility there is to comfort the ones that are still alive. We are there for them. Loving is seldom about us, and I wish I had learned this early in life.
Anyway, back to my ordeal. You know me, I’ve been detaching my digital life from the cloud for a long time. And I do have equipment to survive in a situation like this for a few days. Of course, I learned some new lessons with this test the world just tossed at me, and I’ll do my homework.
However, as a society, I think we are digging our own grave. Why are we increasingly relying on the cloud for everything? Why do all things have to have an app that has to be connected to the Internet to work? The more I think about it, the more I see unreliable digital conveniences replacing the so-called “outdated” gadgets that are still working so well. This is nothing more than building a gigantic house of cards. And to further add more salt to the injury, it is probably being built on top of a single point of failure.
This digital modern life of ours is so bizarre. Among all the real and relevant concerns I was having yesterday, it also occurred to me that I would lose my 775 streak on Duolingo if I couldn’t do my lesson today. Seriously?! The simple fact that something as futile as that crossed my mind is so absurd!
Today, I woke up feeling slightly stressed from my adventures and I still have a bit of a headache. Nothing terrible or distressing happened yesterday. Thankfully, I was working from home and everything was calm in my neighborhood. But, in retrospect, I think the real burden I felt was the thought of possibly not being able to connect with my loved ones living in different parts of the world. That, and the fact that nobody knew exactly what was happening or how many days would be like that. I didn’t miss anything else related to the Internet, just that connection with others and the real-time information that comes with instant communication.
By the way, I’m old enough to say that most of what we did at the beginning of the web was communicating via email, forums, blog comments, etc. It was a lot of fun!
I’m grateful to have power and communication back, but, when walking with my dog this morning, I saw people quickly resuming their lives just like if nothing had happened, and, in a way, that made me sad. Yesterday’s flourishes of harmony and beauty are now gone, like busted soap bubbles.
The insane society we are building for ourselves is now back on track, and the house of cards is sitting there waiting for the next breeze. Until then, the only sign of the now gone problems was a possible bug that kept the public lighting still on during this morning.
Thank you, Evernote, for helping me take good care of my furry friend.
I would prefer not to share this story today, but real life is certainly not all roses.
My lovely dog, who is incapable of hurting a flea, was bitten yesterday. He was enjoying himself at the dog park when another dog rushed towards him and bit him for no apparent reason. To my untrained eye, that was a giant wound that terrified me to death. But later at the vet, I was told that everything was alright since it was only the skin that was cut. Regardless, almost 4 cm (1.5 in) still seems like a lot to me.
Needless to say, this broke my heart, and it took me a long time to fall asleep yesterday. To be honest, I’m still a bit shocked, and this is definitely a story I would prefer not to add to my Elephant’s Journal. But life isn’t always perfect, is it?
Anyway, it happened late at night, and his usual vet doesn’t have an ER. When we reached out to him, he suggested the one we ended up going to. But since this was our first visit to the place, they did not have a file with my dog’s information. His microchip helped with basic details and some vaccines, but Evernote played an important role as it’s where I keep his entire life history.
As I said in yesterday’s video, all my family documents are in the Family notebook. They all have at least two tags: Documents and the name of the person or dog 🐾 that document belongs to. His birth certificate, passport, vaccine card, etc. are all there. And they are all listed in the Documents note, with links back to each of the notes containing the documents.
So, I can either open the Documents note to see a list of the most used documents, or use the tag with his name to filter all his notes in the Timeline notebook.
Another note that I keep in the Family notebook is called Caffeine’s Routines. Yes, his name is Caffeine 🖤. This note starts with a list of all the veterinary appointments in reverse chronological order, linking back to the notes in my new Timeline notebook. All of them also have at least two tags: Caffeine and Veterinary.
Again, I have two options to get to the notes. I can either open the Caffeine’s Routines note to see the list and click on a specific item, or use the Caffeine plus Veterinary tags to filter and see all the notes.
Below that list, I have several tasks, such as his vaccinations and deworming. I even have a task to remind me to give him a bath 😊. All these tasks will automatically show up on the Tasks' widget I keep on Evernote Home.
There is also a link to the Caffeine’s Routines note in the Documents note. Yesterday, at the vet, all I had to do was open Evernote, which in my case is set to open on the Shortcuts page. From there, I taped on Documents (note) and had access to a list of his more relevant notes to answer all the questions the veterinary had.
When I got home, I used Evernote to scan the receipt and the veterinary recommendations, then added the Caffeine, Veterinary, and Health tags, and saved the note in the Timeline notebook. Finally, I added a link to that note to the list on the Caffeine’s Routines note. It took me less than a minute to update the information, which will give me peace of mind in the future.
I’m sure my furry friend will get better soon, but I’m still heartbroken. When I feel less stressed about all of this, I will make a video to better illustrate all the steps above. For now, please show your pet some love. These little guys are absolutely wonderful.
A captivating and enchanting language
Dogs can’t speak like humans, but they know how to make themselves quite obvious. It is only a matter of paying attention. And we should always listen because they have so many lessons to teach us about a mindful life.
For the past three years, I have been learning a lot about kindness, persistence, compassion, loyalty, friendship, and love. ♥️ 🐾
