Before I begin, I wish to say that I make my “living” through technology. It is what puts money in my bank account so I may continue to have a warm place to sleep and cook and love and otherwise live my life outside of work. I appreciate the tool, but I hate it, too. I hate how it seems to pervade every bit of life. But it isn’t really technology, it’s how it is used—which serves to foster more dependence, more looking forward to the next thing instead of being here, now. We take pictures at a concert instead of allowing ourselves to be swept into the music. We take pictures of our food, of our loved ones, of ourselves, instead of really being there. We check work email from home, so we won’t be confronted with a pile of it when we get back. We allow ourselves to be swept along by the current rather than drinking the depths of true experience.

Anyhoo.

My older brother Gregg came to visit me on his way home from an elk-hunting trip in Colorado a few weeks ago, and he told me about his time out there with our cousin Jeff, in a sparse but evocative way so I could feel the place and Gregg’s experience of it. He was a little reluctant at first to talk about it because he knows I eat vegan, but I urged him to tell me, and he did, and he also told me other things about his life that I did not know, and it was a very lovely and healing evening.

Along the way in this conversation, Gregg told me he had an old iPhone and GPS for backpacking, and asked me would I like them? I said, sure. Of course.

I have not upgraded my phone since 2012. It is a perfectly serviceable and quirky LG keyboard phone, doesn’t capitalize when it should and capitalizes when it shouldn’t,

I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away  ~Paul Simon

but fine for texting and vocal communications. It was running out its days, though, getting on in senescence, close to death. I’ve known it for months, but wasn’t going to do anything about it until the emergency hit. Life has a way of working itself out, though, if you step back and let it. So in late October I received a package from Gregg containing a Lowrance Endura Out&Back and a sweet little iPhone, fully charged and ready to go.

But I didn’t do anything about it right away, because my old phone was working fine, and I know, from long experience with companies and technology, that what should be easy never turns out to be easy.

So on a rainy Friday in November, my Saturday, I ventured out to get my hair cut, some groceries, and to switch my phone over to (angels singing) an iPhone. First I stopped at Verizon, but could not find a parking spot near the shop. It was raining hard, so I elected to go get my hair cut and the groceries rather than push on ahead.

About 45 minutes later I found myself in the same parking lot, with a good parking spot and the rain abating, steeling myself for what would follow.

I show the woman at the back of the store my antiquated cell and my new-to-me iPhone. No problem. We can get you sorted out. She hands me off to her coworker, a young man, who begins the process, which takes time on his computer so I have space to witness what is happening with the other guy who came in behind me. Turns out he lost his phone. He doesn’t have any more money to spend per month. What can he do?

He was so apologetic, as if the Verizon lady held his balls in her custom-fitted gauntlets, ready to squeeze. Really. Well, of course he would need a new phone, and an upgrade as well. Only a few dollars more per month, not much at all. He acquiesces, grateful for the privilege of increasing his monthly payment, probably consoling himself that he’ll have a new phone to play with. I don’t know.

∞ ∞ ∞

It is all looking good for me as I answer the questions I’m asked, but along the way my salesguy picks up the iPhone and sees it is a 3G.

We are not supporting 3G as of next month. And actually we will not be supporting this phone either (nodding to my LG). Nothing less than 4G. As of next month.

I’m processing this all, and basically repeat what he has told me, in different words to make sure I was hearing correctly. So, you are telling me that this (holding up 3G iPhone) we are now calling garbage, even though it works perfectly? Even though children in Africa are forced to mine the metals used to produce it and it will go to a landfill to poison the waters in time…we are calling this

3G iPhone

garbage in the name of technological advancement? (Read: corporate greed.)

The salesman nods and tells me I can get a new phone for only $7 extra each month, $1 more for a Smartphone.

I say, again, So you’re telling me that this perfectly good phone—we are calling it garbage because you aren’t going to support 3G anymore?

He nods, looking at me like I’m slightly deranged. I pick up my obsolete phones, thank him for his time, and walk out past the apologetic man and the bouncer at the front of the store.

And other than telling this outrageous story to a couple of people, I was ready to have that be the end. So what if I don’t have a cell phone? So what? Fuckers.

But really, you almost NEED a cell phone these days. My bank sent me an email just a couple of days later telling me they will no longer use email to send me access codes to my account—only texts or phone calls. People expect you to have a Smartphone—my cell phone is a rarity. It cripples you in this world if you don’t have access to the technology that is used by the majority.

Tonight for some reason I remembered that I work in technology, and I know there is always another way to do something. So I looked it up. Turns out Verizon is refusing to activate phones less than 4G. Which to me means, if I can figure out how to activate it myself, it will work. And I did. And here is how to do it, right from the horse’s mouth:

How to Perform the Over-the-Air Activation

People. Do not be ensorcelled by technology and corporate rule. Do not forget your sovereignty. Do not bow and scrape in stores. Do not bow and scrape, ever.

Peace.