It happened on a Wednesday night. A communication breakdown like none the United States had ever seen. The CIA scrambled to reach their contacts in Russia, China, and the darkest corners of the Middle East, but the cell towers were dead. The Pentagon pinged their satellites over North Korea and Iran, but were met with silence. Even the President, sitting in bed with his iPhone, was confused. “Sir, I agree that this was the Chinese. But Twitter is not working right now.”
Our nation’s security apparatus knew exactly what had caused the technology blackout. It was a Russian EMP, a ransom demand from Anonymous, a heist of digital currency. Our technologists saw it clearly as a colossal failure of 5G infrastructure, a Facebook PR stunt, an inevitable coup by AI. Our political class diagnosed an obvious scheme by Republicans to subvert the election, a plan by Democrats to do the same.
Unfortunately, it was on the back of this very network that such people spoke their conclusions into being, and so a quite dramatic moment was met with silence. No breaking news, no exclusive interviews. Just silence.
It was on the heels of such drama that the nation awoke on Thanksgiving morning.
It began with the workaholics, whose email-induced insomnia started raising flags before the sun came up over the East Coast. “Honey.” It’s Thanksgiving, is he f*cking serious? “Honey. Check your phone. Do you have service?”
Next were the children, insomniacs in their own right, unable to find their favorite cartoons and alarmed by the prospect of missing that morning’s Twitch stream. “DAD!” It’s Thanksgiving, are they f*cking serious? “THERE’S NO WIFI!”
By late morning on the East Coast, those with average intelligence had gleaned that something was awry. It seemed unlikely that cable, internet and cell service would have all disconnected at once. The safest thing, most figured, was to stay indoors, and wait for further instruction. It was Thanksgiving, after all. What else could they do?
Others, with somewhat different wiring, felt as though they had been dealt the universe’s unluckiest hand. “Cable, internet and 5G, all down? What are the chances?” For hours they fumbled with power switches, unplugged everything from TVs to toasters, and changed all the settings on their phones. Millions of devices, in the mayhem, turned black and white, were locked indefinitely, and switched to Chinese. A not small number exploded against the wall, casualties of the ultimate corn maze: How do you get out when the exits are all overgrown?
Only after exhausting all options did these people think of checking with their neighbors. “Go next door? I guess I could do that… what was their name again?” Tenants met one another for the first time, and executives trudged up and down long driveways to breach the gated fortresses next door. Everyone, it seemed, was in the dark.
And so finally, by midday, the country took a deep breath. This is really happening. They stopped trying to troubleshoot and focused on what they could control: dinner. It was Thanksgiving, after all.
Millions of turkeys went into the oven. Potatoes were mashed, smashed and blended. Yams were glazed, green beans were baked, and rolls were buttered. Tables, typically set for twenty, were set for four. A selection of wines were left with corks intact, free to age for another year.
With nothing else to do, the kitchen dissolved into chaos. Young boys aimed blenders at their siblings and said “POW,” specks of white spuds flying everywhere. Teenage girls grabbed baking sheets bare-handed, spilling roasted carrots and decadent pecan pies all over the floor. Dad jokes bounced from house to house until the nation’s groans reached a crescendo. “Hey Honey, if I’d known I’d be shoving my hand up this turkey’s ass I’d have given it a kiss first!”
Many people, escaping the bedlam with a walk around the neighborhood, came back with guests. “You sure this is alright? I don’t mind eating alone, honest. I do it most years.” But families insisted. What would he do all by himself, they wondered, with nothing to stream, no one to call? And so extra places were set, and that bottle of wine brought back out to the table.
By dusk, with plates piled high and drinks poured, a strange thing happened. In some households it was the matriarch of the family, in others the patriarch. In some it was even the children. But there’s no doubt that across the country, in almost every household, the dinner began with a prayer.
Some addressed God, others each other, and some said in ten words what their neighbor said in one hundred. But each said some variation of the following:
“Whatever’s happening out there, I am so thankful that we’re together. I am thankful we have food on our table and that we are safe. I hope that the rest of the country is safe and enjoying this dinner with their loved ones, and I can’t wait until we’re all reunited.”
After those words were spoken, between mouthfuls of ham and casserole, conversation lingered on the things that had been said. Thankfulness. Support for one another. Families retold stories they hadn’t heard in decades. Friends talked about the strength of their friendships. Young kids, unable to focus on the table in front of them, were let outside to wrestle, and climb trees, and run from the dog.
There was speculation about what had happened, sure, but for the most part, in the absence of expert opinion, most chose to stay silent. “Not much we can do now but wait,” they said. And that was that.
In fact, in the absence of any new information, the two other topics on everyone’s mind, the pandemic and the election, fell on deaf ears as well. “There is clearly something bigger at foot here,” people surmised. “So why worry about that stuff? Save it for another day.”
Eventually, alongside the silence that blanketed the country, a feeling of calm registered in many households. The relief of being truly powerless to fix anything. No solutions to debate, or people to disagree with. A true act of God. So everyone huddled together, ate their food, and made Grandpa laugh a little bit.
Night came, and gradually everyone went to bed. Leftovers were boxed up and plans were made for turkey sandwiches the following day. Stuffed full of tryptophan and with a healthy buzz, the nation fell asleep easily. But not before thinking, one more time, of everything they were thankful for and wishing the best for everyone they loved.
Friday morning, people woke to a Thanksgiving miracle. Everything had been restored. In the largest communication surge since 9/11, everybody called everybody. FaceTime crashed after a few seconds, but no one seemed to mind, having confirmed their sisters and brothers were alive. Even the President’s tweets, filled as they were with demands for war with China, were met with smiles. Everything was back to normal.
As the day wore on, it became clearer and clearer that the Thanksgiving Blackout, as it was being called, had only affected the United States. The nation’s expert class – the military brass and technologists and intelligentsia – descended with a fury on cable news and Twitter, all clamoring to be the first to explain what had happened.
But, in a day filled with oddities – Tucker Carlson had resigned his post on Fox in tears – there was one that the experts simply couldn’t explain: No one was watching the news. Better yet, social media impressions, as the smartest people in the country liked to call them, had slowed to a standstill. The leaders of the nation, the greatest in the world at that, were trying their best to point fingers, to assign blame, and no one was there to listen.
They were confused, sure, but the answer was right there, waiting to be found, if only they’d ask. But they were the experts, and so what good would it do asking some Average Joe on the street? “Hey buddy, why aren’t you watching American Carnage: 24/7 COVID Insights anymore?”
If the experts had asked, they would have found the answer to be almost beautiful in it’s simplicity:
“I dunno, I just decided to leave everything disconnected. It was kinda nice, yesterday.”
The Best Thing I’ve Read All Year
Ok, that’s a bold statement. Maybe it’s not the best thing I’ve read all year. But Craig Mod’s piece from 2019 in WIRED, The Glorious, Almost-Disconnected Boredom of My Walk in Japan, was so closely aligned with my interests it was a bit weird.
First, there’s how I learned about it, in Tim Ferriss’ weekly newsletter.
Next, there’s the general premise. A six-week, 620-mile walk through Japan. The 32-mile Saunter is a joke compared to this, as is my 20-mile walk to Flushing.
“About a week into the walk, I told an old woman about my schedule and she asked me, ‘Is this an ascetic practice?’ I laughed in the moment, but then for weeks as I walked, I turned her question over and over in my mind. The grueling pace. The boredom. The pain. And then doing it over again the next day. It certainly starts to sound like an ascetic practice.“
There’s also Mod’s motivation for the walk, which in part was a way to disconnect from technology:
“But sharing today means using social platforms like Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. And once you open those apps and stare into the maw of an algorithmically curated timeline, you are pulled far, far away from the music and the toilet or wherever it is you may be at that moment.”
There’s a sprinkling of my favorite concepts from books like The Power of Habit:
“But one chief purpose for this kind of monastic walking is to literally pound into your body, step after step, the positive habits that can be found only through repetition. To create a physiological template of stillness, or kindness, or focus that you can then attempt to bring back to the ‘real’ world. Stillness is then no longer an idea, but a muscular configuration. Sure, you may be a ‘floating consciousness’ between the rice fields, but how patient are you back in the office with frustrating coworkers?”
And then finally, Mod is a believer in the strength of saying hello:
“And so this is who I decided to be: a fully present, disgustingly kind hello machine. I said hello to bent-over grandmothers and their grandchildren playing in rice paddies. I said hello to business folk about to hop into their Suzuki Jimny jeeps, to Portuguese workers on break from car factories, to men in traditional fundoshi underwear about to carry a portable shrine in a festival… Folks looked up from their gardening or sweeping or bananas and flung a hello back, often reflexively but then, once their eyes caught up with their mouths and they saw I was not a local, not one of them, their faces shifted to delight.”
Give the essay a read if you like any of the above.
I know this week’s iteration was a bit long, but in my defense a good chunk of that were block quotes that I’m sure some of you breezed right over. As always, thank you for your readership and engagement with my writing. I am so grateful to have a collection of friends and family who I feel comfortable sending my thoughts to without fear of retribution or ridicule. It has made the writing process more enjoyable than I ever imagined and far more rewarding.
I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving, and hope that each of you can find little ways over the coming week to spend quality time with your loved ones – whether physically or virtually – and to think about everything we have to be thankful for living in a great country like this one.
“Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”
– Dale Carnegie
All of the country’s problems will be waiting for us in a week’s time, don’t worry.
-Emmett
Recent Posts:
Self-Storage – Getting creative with shielding assets (Fiction, Funny, 2 min)
Who took the jam outta your donut? – A reminder that no one can read your mind (Blog, 2 min)
What I’m Reading:
We Have No Idea What Happens Next – Morgan Housel, Collaborative Fund
“Which should make you wonder: What unintentional paths will 2020’s god-awful virus set in motion?”
A Bogus Dispute Is Doing Real Damage – Peggy Noonan, WSJ
“The irony is that this election will be remembered for the president’s attempts to sow chaos, not for what it actually appears to have been, which is a triumph for America. In the middle of a pandemic, with new rules, there was historically high turnout. Under stress the system worked. Voters were committed, trusting, and stood in line for hours. There was no violence at the polls, no serious charges of voter suppression. In a time of legitimate hacking fears, there were no reports of foreign interference. Our defenses held.”
What I’m Listening To:
Dax Shepard on the Craft of Podcasting, Favorite Books, and Dancing with Your Demons – The Tim Ferriss Show
“And so over years of being sober, my list really became, have I exercised? Have I gone to a meeting? Have I been of service to somebody I don’t want to be? And in general, when I feel terrible, if I ask myself those three things, if those three things happened today. I’ve never done those three things and been in major discontent. That for me is my checklist.“