iPhone metaphysics
by Greta Belanger deJong
Last month I wrote, “I somehow persist in believing everyone has my best interests at heart, even though there’s evidence to the contrary…” and that if and when I manage to opt out of my cultural deals with the devil, “I hope I still get to keep my iPhone.”
Two weeks later, my iPhone disappeared off of a friend’s entryway table. It was there… and then it wasn’t. Everyone looked and looked. But it was Gone. Either stolen, or transported to who knows where on its own power. (Really, I would put little past these pocketsized wonders.)
Replacing an iPhone is an expensive proposition-twice its original price. I was incredulous that this had happened to me, and held out as long as I could (so now you know, if you tried to reach me, why I seemed so mysterious and aloof….)
I considered the online iPhones. But I couldn’t help but think: They must all be stolen. Who in their right mind would give up an iPhone for anything else? Besides, the prices weren’t good enough to make up for the creepy feeling that I would be benefiting from someone else’s loss.
Eventually I broke down and with tech wizard coworker Mike Cowley headed for the AT&T store. There, we discovered that I could switch to a business plan, add a line, buy a phone for the same price as the missing one, consolidate some things and, in the end, save $80/month.
I don’t know what the karmic debt will be for the person who lifted my phone (presuming, of course, that the phone did not quietly slip into a different dimension). I do know that, even though all evidence pointed to the contrary, it appears that my best interests were still being attended to. I don’t mean to brag. I am in awe of whatever manifests as good fortune in my life, and mightily grateful.
And in those intervening days (which I like to think of as The Lost Days of iPhone), I did have the sense that I really could do just fine on my own. Which is good because, really, who knows where the radical changes in conscious awareness catalyzed by undoing those deals with the devil will inspire us to go?
Right now I am going to my garden, where I am going to get mightily dirty, and if the phone rings, even if it’s you, I will not answer it. I mean, I love you and all, but the garden is so very Now, and time’s a-wastin’. It’s like a lifetime occurring in seven months: Miss one week, and it’s as if you missed three years. I’ll check in later, maybe from the tub. Leave a message, okay?
Greta Belanger deJong is the editor and publisher of CATALYST.