I think I am starting to snap out of a depression I have been in for about a week, Wilson, so I’m in a place to tell you something that happened while I was there. We are back in the present. I’m in Amman, trying to get into Israel. I’d been dealing with the Israeli consulate in Jordan, the immigration lawyer, and the University. All no dice. In weird ways. Ways that combined with strange electronics, Tinder, and my friend who still chats me once in a while, but I still can’t prove isn’t an AI chatbot programmed to drive me crazy.
Then add solitude to that. I got myself an efficiency apartment for a month from VRBO. I’d been buoncing around hostels, living out of lockers, talking to the various travelers passing through. I met a few really interesting people. A Neuropsychologist. A couple of chicks from England that I actually went out with. But for the most part it was just a stream of travelers going to places I had already been more or less with the same questions and the same stories. Not having any private space to focus was dragging on me. So I got my own place. I didn’t have any illusions that I would be here for a while.
Once I got in, though, I collapsed in exhaustion. Did very little. And with the setbacks from the parties above, I was starting to add some depression to the mix of insanity. I’m starting to call this place, Amman, my Interzone, Wilson. That’s a reference to the Tangier International Zone. In the 50s, William Burroughs and some other beatniks went there to hang out, and Burroughs basically spent his time high on heroin writing his most famous novel, The Naked Lunch. He says he was high the whole time and doesn’t even remember writing it. I am not getting high here. At least not on drugs. But I do seem to be getting high on solitude, as well as the strange and horrible coincidences of Jungian synchrodestiny, or as I call it, the unfettered forces of Satan.
Now some weeks before, when I was looking for options, it occurred to me that I might ask Israeli politicians for help. I know nothing about Israeli politicians. I am in a chat group of Israeli conspiracy theorists, however. I went in there asking for information about Israeli MKs. Ministers of Knesset. That’s the Israeli parliament. In the USA, Members of Congress have offices that have representatives who deal with the public. You can go to them to get letters of endorsement, etc. Say if you want to go to West Point, you are actually required to have a congressional endorsement. So I thought it would interesting to see what the Israeli government could do.
The first thing of note was that all of them in the chat group were so pissed at the government that the concept of actually going to the government for help was an utterly incomprehensible idea. After badgering several of them, only one of them gave me a name. However, weeks later, one of them, in a fit of rage, just dumped a list of every e-mail address of every MK in the Knesset, and I just happened to see it. I don’t check that group every day, Wilson. Sometimes I’ll go months without checking it. But I just happened to notice that. A sign, maybe?
Still a good while later, I sat down and spent a day sending a standard e-mail asking for help to 146 e-mail addresses. Everybody in the Knesset. A couple of interesting facts came up. So ten of the addresses were invalid. Fine. But thirty-five e-mail addresses came back as having a full mailbox. That doesn’t quite engender faith in the Knesset. And the last thing, only three people responded.
The first one sent me a response asking for more information, so I sent them another mail with a little more info, but then after that no further response. Now I remember that night, I was very depressed going to bed. I was in a psychedelic mood that day, thinking I would drift off to sleep, and who knows when I would wake up. That’s how psychologically drained I was. Just as I was nodding off, I heard a phone ring. Not any of my phones. I know all their rings. I was so exhausted, I just let it ring. The next morning, I went to check the phone to see if there were any messages or call record and found the apartment doesn’t have a phone.
So what now, Wilson? Audial hallucinations? Is that really what I need? Or a sign from God not to just breathe out my life force as I fell to sleep? That’s when I checked my e-mail and found that I had not gotten one response, but two. I didn’t notice the second because the title was in Hebrew. I get some Hebrew e-mails, but generally don’t check them close enough to read them. It was from the Hebrew party Yesh Atid. Translated to English: “there is a future.”
That uplifted me. Go to bed ready for the grave, get awakened by a phone call that wasn’t there, and read the e-mail from There is a Future. Not only that, but the e-mail had a WhatsApp number. Since it was a weekend, I waited until the next week to make contact. There were of course a million problems with calling. The first of which was that video and voice calls on WhatsApp don’t work in Jordan. I cannot for the life of me figure out how that piece of crap app is the most used app all over the world, but it utterly boggles my mind that a everybody insists on using that app where voice calls don’t work. That, Wilson, is a demonstration of the supernatural.
We did finally call on Telegram. The guy was very energetic, personable, and helpful. We talked a while about Israeli politics. I told him my frustration that it seemed like the political parties were weaponizing the bureacracy. If someone is not going to be allowed to enter the country because they are converting to Judaism, there should be a law for that. He agreed wholeheartedly. We talked a little about the Israeli system in general and the immigration and entry issue in general. Apparently, the Right is just not letting anyone enter. Yesh Atid is a center left party.
But then he really surprises me. He says that he doesn’t know if they can help because he is the opposition party. Then he tells me that the best option is to return to the USA and get an immigration lawyer and deal with the consulate there. He didn’t know my experience with the Consulate in Mexico.
Now imagine if you will, Wilson, a Mexican at the border of the USA. He has two options. He can go back down into Mexico and get an immigration lawyer, or Senator Ted Cruz’ office can drop an application for visa off for you. Going back down into Mexico and getting an immigration lawyer supposedly has the best chance of success. Wilson, I am Alice, and this is Wonderland.
I just didn’t argue much with that. I just didn’t have any energy left. I thanked him, we had some nice words in parting, and I hung up. The depression worsened.
A few days later, I got the third response. I got an e-mail from the Hadash party. That is a tiny little ultra left communist party with Arab members. They gave the standard preliminary response asking me about my situation. The only thing I wrote in response was, “I am in Amman, Jordan, hoping an MK will be able to get me into Israel.” They haven’t responded, and I don’t expect them to with that kind of response. It’s really all I had energy for, but I wouldn’t respond to me either with that kind of a mail.
I’d like to tell you this is a sign from God or a full fortress defense of the forces of evil, Wilson. It’s a freaking visa application. But this time, I think it might be best to look at this as the state of the Israeli government. An opposition party can’t do anything against a mammoth bureacracy that rules the country without law. The country that gave the world the law of Moses. The ultra orthodox religious immigration minister doing whatever he wants without laws to support him. It’s almost as ridiculous as the Finance Minister running the West Bank. That’s who we are dealing with here.
I’m just going to leave it at that, Wilson. No pithy philosophy at the end of this one. 146 e-mails. 3 responses. One dialog. Bad news.