Looking back, I think it all started with my phone, the late Galaxy A14.

Or maybe it started in 2019 before hitting and shutting down the world in March 2020. But for brevity’s sake, let’s just say it started with my phone on May 6, 2025.

On May 6, I went to see a client. Feng offered me a ride, but, as usual, I decided to walk. I needed to stretch my legs before sitting at a desk for a few hours, and I needed some time to jump-start my brain since I’m not a morning person.

It was drizzling, but I didn’t mind—growing up in Nantes made me fully waterproof. I zipped up my rain jacket and started walking on Baseline, along the Experimental Farm.

It started raining harder at one point. I put my hood on, and I made it to the client without looking like a wet dog.

We worked together for a few hours, proofing a long paper I translated in April, then I walked back home.

The next day, I got up, brewed a cup of coffee, and sat on the couch to read Le Monde, just like every morning.  But none of the links would open. The screen was acting up. Single tap, double tap, triple very annoyed tap, nothing worked.

I turned the phone off and on again. Now I couldn’t even open apps. Feng asked me what was going on. I explained the problem, which I professionally described as an “unresponsive screen”—not that the “professionally” part mattered, Feng doesn’t know shit about phones, and he simply suggested turning it off and on again.

What had gone wrong with my usually reliable phone? It must have been the rain the day before. I did get a bit wet in my bag, but it wasn’t the first time the phone and I were getting rained on, and it had worked perfectly fine for almost 24 hours after that.

I had to go, I was meeting a friend. It was a very boring 45-minute walk without my podcasts, but to spice things up, my phone decided to open apps randomly on its own—Google Maps for a few seconds (dude, I’m not lost), then the mailbox (it deleted a bunch of emails), then the music player (… thanks, I guess?).

“I think my phone is possessed,” I told my friend. She suggested removing the battery, and we both watched a how-to YouTube video on her phone. Ah, forget it. I can barely take the phone out of the case, let alone pry apart the screen off the back cover and unscrew tiny screws. Not to mention that Happy Goat offers free water, but no screwdrivers.

Back home, I tried various tricks to exorcise the phone (using rice, not holy water), but nothing worked. Eventually, I managed to unlock the screen and transfer my files to my laptop. I also discovered that Samsung had kindly backed up all my apps in the mysterious cloud, so I didn’t lose anything except the physical device.

I ordered the Galaxy A16 on Amazon for $230 and two days later, I got ready to resume my life with a phone.

End of the story?

Not quite.

These days, apps are almost living things. Many of them weren’t happy to be installed on a new phone because, technically, they were already installed on another phone. “Please uninstall the app before logging into a new device.” “But I can’t!” I screamed many times. “The phone is dead, do you understand, DEAD!”

The hours I spent arguing with AI without being able to reach the human boss of these apps were the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

This is not just about the stupid phone and the countless apps we all need now to pay, work, organize life and more.

It’s about the many hoops we have to jump through constantly for every little thing and to get anything done these days.

It’s about the pretty unsettled world we live in right now.

I’m so tired of living in interesting times. I bang into everything, everywhere, all the time these days—not physical furniture, but issues beyond my control.

I don’t know how to handle inflation, political chaos, a lack of perspectives, and a vague feeling of fear and helplessness that the pandemic left me with.

I ask my Iranian friend if her family is safe back home. I ask my Jewish friends if their relatives are okay in Israel. All of them feel pride in their identity, and none of them decided to go to war.

I listen to my Ukrainian friends rant against Putin, and I listen to my American friends rant against Trump.

A handful of world leaders started a dick-measuring contest. Inconveniently, they have access to deadly weapons, while thousands of civilians serve as a buffer.

All the decisions that the top level is making ripple out and affect the lives of billions of people who can’t say anything about it.

“My motto has always been ‘Trust life!’”, a friend confessed recently. She made a face. “Yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch these days, I know…”

No shit. This world is way too chaotic to think straight.

I’m not made of glass, I can take a few knocks in life. But it would be nice to have a bit of hope.