Mexico is big on Whatsapp. I've heard it a few times, "not having Whatsapp down here is almost like not having a phone." I can see the uses of a cellphone, especially if it's the cheapest one on the shelf at Oxxo, which is the Mexican 7-11. I'm on my 3rd convenience-store phone. The "unlimited talking and text in N. America" plan is anything but. It fails on me all the time. I regularly have to recharge it before the plan expires. After doing that a few times, it stops working altogether. As in, it stops accepting the re-up. It won't let me add more time to it. I have to get a new phone every few months. I have a theory that TelCel, one of the bigger companies down here and the one that dominates the disposable phone market in Mexico, is just a couple guys with folding chairs and a card table under a tent in a parking lot in Juárez. They don't even have an office space in a strip mall. They do all their work through pirated wi-fi in the parking lot of a Walmart. My new phone cost me about $25. I have no idea why people spend more than $25 on a phone.
Or rather, I do. It's one of the reasons I don't have a lot of faith in humanity. I have faith in individuals, but not in groups. I believe there is a lot of hope for one person. All groups are doomed. But one person has a fighting chance.
Of course, they have to fight.
I had to call a tow truck today, which was an inevitable challenge. My Spanish is okay, but not great. Fortunately, I do know a guy here, and I called him to ask if he knew any towing companies. He texted me a number. I talked to the towing company several times, a couple times to make sure they were even on their way. My Spanish isn't good enough to know if the person even heard what I was saying, necessarily. I get a strong gist, but sometimes that's it. And in the case of waiting for a tow truck, a gist is not enough.
When I talked to them, they wanted to know the exact numeric address where I was broken down. This being Mexico, not every street has an exact numeric value. This is one of the things I like about Mexico, and one of the reasons Whatsapp is so big down here (apparently it's a honing device as well as a "messaging app"). But I was parked next to a construction site, in the "parking lot" of an abandoned hotel, all of it on a steep upgrade on a street made of loose, arguing boulders, as usual. I was across the street from an out-of-business-looking gym or health center. No buildings had any numbers on them of any kind, and street signs do exist, but you can't count on it. There was a guy inside the health center, and he was very friendly and helpful, as was the guy I talked to in the first place. I got an "address," which was literally something like "The 1km mark up the Hill of the Cross," or something. It was enough. The tow-truck guy called me when he got to the street, I walked out in the road and waved my arms, and that was that.
I talked to the one guy later, and with a very slight annoyance he said something about getting "Whatsapp," and how not having Whatsapp is almost like not having a phone, etc. It has bothered me, as slightly as the annoyance with which the suggestion was given, ever since.
When I was a cabdriver I still used a PAPER MAP. I was the very last generation of cabbies who used RADIO DISPATCH. The company I worked for eventually switched to GPS-based dispatch, which was the beginning of the end of my cab life. I remember working Halloween in Austin in 2009, and the city was a wonderful madhouse, driving through all the vampires and Cinderellas and zombies, listening to the radio squawking like a coked-up raven, and all the lunacy, and warring with the other cabbies for fares, and cops and drunks and lights and bands, fireworks even, and it was a great time. I used to enjoy being a cabdriver.
When my company switched to GPS, the cab was so quiet it was like driving a hearse. I instantly stopped taking any dispatched calls, and subsisted entirely on flags for the remainder of my career. If somebody wasn't standing there flagging me down, I didn't get the ride. My business suffered, but I was still able to survive. But the writing was on the wall.
One time, 2 girls asked to be taken to a location I was unfamiliar with, and I pulled out my paper map of Austin. They freaked out, and, obviously reading from their phones, told me which way to go. I wasn't offended, but told them it was cool, hold on. I froze the meter until I knew where I was going, which took all of 10 seconds (at the most), and we were on our way. They tried to correct me once or twice, but I assured them we were fine. In fact, their GPS was taking us the WRONG WAY. I understood why they were tracking me, and in fact I think it's a smart thing for people to do, if they're concerned about their safety, but I knew where I was going and didn't take them 10 feet out of the way. We arrived at the destination and it was a normal, uneventful fare.
But why would any self-respecting, sentient being with a brain RELY ON A MACHINE to tell them where they're going?
It starts out as convenient, but turns into a mandatory shackle, eventually.
I mean, look at Australia. Those people can't do anything.
Would their enslavement be possible if every citizen wasn't carrying a TRACKING DEVICE on them at all times?
Absolutely, it would not.
My tracking device is worthless. It doesn't even work as a phone, which is the only thing I use it for. I change my number every few months out of necessity. And that's the way I like it.
You couldn't pay me to carry around a machine with a FACEBOOK TRACKER disguised as a MESSAGING APP on it (Whatsapp is a derogatory Farcebook derivative of some kind, I think), no matter how many people use it. What self-respecting, sentient being trades in their freedom for convenience? The overwhelming number of people who rely on it is THE PROBLEM, not the solution.
What self-respecting individual trades in their freedom for convenience? I didn't have a bank account for 20 years. It was inconvenient, but not impossible, especially when you work in an industry nobody thinks is worthy of serious compensation. I didn't have a bank account because there was never enough money to keep in a bank. And all of a sudden I'm going to buy a "smartphone" so I can tell a towing company to look up my location on Facebook?
Are you kidding?
I didn't have a bank account for 20 years. I'm not Nick Cave, or Amy Winehouse, or anybody like that. I lived in the desert for 15 years, in the mountains, in the forest, bathing in the freezing stream, or not at all, cutting my hair in the rearview mirror, brushing my teeth in the steel sink of the city park on Christmas morning, and have been in all kinds of mechanically-compromising situations, and have always been alright, one way or the other. And so after all that, now, out of the blue, after 20 years of learning it isn't necessary at all, I'm going to pay some company to follow me around on Google Maps?
You couldn't pay me.
You could. It would cost at least a vermilion dollars. A million dollars is nothing. But you could pay me to do it. You'd have to set me up for life, and give me mask immunity on every airline in the world, and throw roses in the path of everyone on the flight as we all disembarked, mask-free, on every flight I ever took again, for the rest of my life. I wouldn't do it for less.
In other words, the price of my FREEDOM is to make my privileges so permanent and, essentially, above the law, that it would resemble something approximating how freedom used to look in decades past.
You'd have to give me the right to taze any cop in the face, who tried to tell me to subject myself to some arbitrary mandate delivered from on high by the self-righteous star chamber of the month. I'd have to have the right to kick any Karen in the face who nagged me at the store, or anywhere, and charge her with rape and attempted murder if she so much as spit on me. She would have to be terrified of spending 20 years in jail for even glancing at me sideways, and losing her job and having her entire livelihood and reason to live completely destroyed, which is how it is for many men in the Western world today. She would have to pay the consequences, and all the legal fees, and buy me dinner. I'd have to be allowed to carry a gun anywhere in the world, and instantly use it on anybody who assaulted me at a "peaceful protest" for nothing, and the cops would have to take me out to dinner and apologize for letting the mindless blac-bloc piglets interfere with my day. And I'd pay my speeding and parking tickets, even if I didn't agree with them, just to show that I have never wanted anything but to BE FREE and to PLAY FAIR, and for this I would be allowed to live on the HONOR SYSTEM. Everything I ever said again would have to be taken at face-value as at least an attempt at gospel truth. Lies? Never. If you're going to take my rights, I want every privilege granted to me on a silver platter, with no exceptions.
Then, and only then, will I get Whatsapp.
Because there is never going to be an app for freedom.
Freedom can't be developed by an Antifa sympathizer in an office park in San Jose. It can only be exercised in real-time by individuals on the spot, anytime, anywhere. Freedom will never be installed on your phone. Freedom can't be downloaded, pirated, rebooted, gagged, ragged, de-fragged, grated, degraded, exo-isolated, sated, baited, ultra-insulated, intra-undulated, pre-faloobricated, pixelated, re-exposited, deposited, debuted, debited, credited, de-Reddited, canceled, Hansel'd, Gretel'd, medaled, pedaled, bummed, thumbed, bread-crumbed, borrowed, tomorrowed, embezzled, frizzled, grizzled, pensively chiseled, expensively penciled, or expansively tinseled.
Freedom can only be exercised by individuals in real-time. It can't be developed, because it can't be granted. It can't be invented; it can only be discovered.
Lose the pig phone. At the very least, don't get a new one. Go to the convenience store, and get whatever most-closely resembles something the Flintstones would use. And don't store too many numbers on it.
Chances are, you're going to have to replace it in a few months anyway. Eventually, they'll stop making them. At that point, we go back to walking up to the guy on the street and asking him what the name of this street is, and do you know a guy with a tow-hitch I can pay to drag me off the top of this mountain?
And someone will say yes. Those who don't, have chosen to burn. Let them. God is on your side. Walk in faith. If we learn to walk in faith, we will rediscover our souls. However much it may inconvenience us in the meantime, it will be worth it in the end.
Pablo con Dios,
N
Talking to the tow truck driver:
