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Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@oandersonrian?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Anderson Rian</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/connection?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>
 
It began as all sad stories begin. It was a good day and was shaping to make a fine evening, but it didn't. That was the day my phone stopped charging. Amongst a particular circle of friends I have, we call these moments, as I'm sure everyone else does, tribulations, and we measure them in a very ambiguous unit known as *tribules*. 
When it happened, I was quite scientific about the confirmation process. I verified by using two other compatible chargers and they all did not work. Sadly, I resigned to my fate and knew it was only a matter of time before 60% become 0% and the phone went off. In a way, it was as though I was watching a timebomb slowly ticking down to zero with that iconic tick-tock sound made popular by the TV show 24, and I enjoyed every second of the countdown to an inevitable shutdown.
The thrill of the countdown slowly gave way to the realization of the magnitude of my loss. My phone was my gateway to the internet, and without it I was left in the dark. Positive thoughts quickly receded into the shadows and left me wandering what I would do with myself without that connection. Then anger slowly crept in. "The phone was just ten months old," I said to myself, "What sort of tribulation is this?" In hindsight I find it ridiculous that I was that worried, but I suppose all things we value and pay a price for tend to leave a hole in our lives when we lose them, right?
So began my long walk through the darkness of living without an internet connection which so many things I do depend on. I began to read some old paperbacks I have. I fantasized about cave paintings as I saw myself as reduced to a caveman, and I also took more evening walks, and many more people in my neighbourhood began to see me more frequently. Apparently, most of them thought I was no longer around. It dawned on me then that while I was connected to a virtual and much wider world through the internet, I had somewhat completely detached myself from the "real world." This is a real thing that the internet does to us and that we have to be mindful of, because we can have the best of both world: the virtual and the real Earth.
I've never been one for fixing my broken devices, but I had it coming with this phone. Just two days after it got broken, a friend of mine managed to convince me to take it to the Samsung Smart Care Center where the phone spent about twelve days without getting fixed. They only fixed it after I went there and figuratively dragged them in the mud.
Happy I was, though I'd lost everything on the device. I took it as a good sign, a rebirth of sorts. But it was not meant to be. Just a few hours later, the phone developed the same fault again. Now this was the time for dramatic anger; flaming eyes, steaming ears and the whole shebang. I nearly smashed the phone as I've smashed many in the past, but I couldn't find the courage to do it. Instead, I gave it to my cousin and told him that he could have it if he could fix it. I'd now gone fifteen days without phone calls or an internet connection, so I went out and bought a new phone for making calls (just the rudimentary stuff) and I also got a Wi-Fi router for my internet needs and I was back, sort of.
In a way, all this got me doing other things that I'd been putting off, but that did not depend on the internet. I wrote a short screenplay titled Ink, based on a story that has lived in my head for months now, and I wrote the outline for a feature length screenplay too. All that reminded me how much I enjoy writing as a medium of translating my imagination. I also saw [Ron's Gone Wrong](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7504818/) which is a really good movie about what human connection means, and I missed talking to my friends, but that just made them even more cherished.
It all began as all sad stories begin, but I quite like the outcome. Detached from my artificial branch of life, I reconnected to the one which I was born into and found meaning in many things I'd forgotten about. In the end, I've come to realize that meaningful connection in today's world is a hybrid of ones and zeros, and you and me. It's sort of like detaching from the matrix to appreciate the reality of your existence, and it's a really beautiful experience.