Technology

I vacillate wildly as to the benefits and or woes of technology. "What did people do before the Internet," a friend asked her elder roommate. Without much thought he named human activities: read, draw, write, paint, listen to/make music, socialize in person...

So why the obsession with the internet? I mean, what has the internet ever done for me or you other than make us less interesting, less sociable, less attentive and less self sufficient? I am sure that a reader may make quite convincing arguments that I am indeed wrong; that technology does just the opposite: makes us smarter, better, faster, more efficient and able to tap into an endless fountain of information, from debates about Norwegian funds for REDD to sustainable rural cities in Mexico. True. But do you use the Internet for that? Even if you do, can you really argue that the majority of people, especially younger generations, are really using the Internet to read Focault rather than faffing about on Facebook?



If I am so against technology then why opt to write on my neglected blog rather than inside my antiquated, tangible journal? Because the internet is useful but rarely utilized.

Shock appeal

Living in Mexico has conditioned me to see things once thought dangerous or odd (but mostly the former) as normal. Traversing a 10 lane busy streets. Normal. Ability to buy candy covered in bees. Totally normal. But I am genuinely surprised that I can now place an attempted mugging in this category.

Walking the extra couple blocks from where I bid my friends and the greedy cab driver, the bastard, adieu, the thought did cross my mind that I should be careful. It was, after all, 1:30 on a Saturday night (better said Sunday morning) in Mexico City. I spotted a drunk guy, stumbling back and forth, and cleverly evaded his sight. He had looked like trouble, and I congratulated myself on a job well done. "Just walk in the road," a friend advised me once. So I did.

I moved to the sidewalk even as a second male approached. He looked legit with his clean clothes, lack of hair gel and piercings and years beyond (but not too far) the teens. Just an ordinary, middle-class guy walking home from a party, I thought. I mean, there is always a chance but there is a bush between me and the road now. Oh, and many cars. But he is not going to...my thought process was interrupted as he jumped for me, putting his arms around my waist and slightly lifting me off the ground. Going for the pockets, I must assume? Why not just grab my bag, not even securely attached, demonstrated by its slow plunge to the ground and subsequent vomiting of my mp3 player onto the side walk through the broken zipper that I have the best intentions to fix?

I saw the change, the adoption of a squatting position not seen since high school gym class, all happening in my mind in slow motion, and I was screaming like a maniac long before he made contact. But this reaction surprised him, nay, even took him off guard, and before I knew it, he was running as I was falling (my classic and effective robber deterrent). I examined my broken nail; then my fallen bag and mp3 player, accidentally activated by the drop and glowing blue on the sidewalk. Had I really made it through that without losing anything? Again? Do not get me wrong - I am very happy about this, but jeez. What an amateur. I do not wish he had taken anything but the whole thing just seems absurd.



I ran to my apartment and, oh technology, wrote a short sentence or two about my adventure on Facebook. Within five minutes an old friend rang me up from L.A. He wanted to know if I was okay.

"You know, Mary," he said, "I remember Mexico City and I know a way to decrease crime by 5%. Today. Install more street lights. That place is fucking ridiculously dark."

So he went on to tell me about how a man in Mexico City he had met in a cantina casually suggested they go for "hookers and cocaine" and that when my friend declined, he called him a "flan." He then spoke of California life and how a bar in L.A. has a swimming pool on the roof accompanied by a vending machine offering $80 bathing suits to unprepared guests.

I do not mean to sound flippant about this, you know. It is just that I was not injured or successfully mugged. I was barely even surprised. So who cares? I would like to say I expect the best in people but maybe having already seen the really nasty side (and I am not even speaking about Mexicans or Americans or Germans or other -ans but the greater pool of humanity) I expect people to act, well, human. A harmless, weaponless, obviously desperate guy tried his luck with some white, very well dressed (so modest), uneven haired and unaccompanied young woman on a dark street. So it goes.