This is not a post about technology; some of those who read this will understand what it refers to…

I use an Otterbox case for my smartphone. It’s the first smartphone I’ve ever had. But now it’s getting old (the case), and so the specific part of the case that transmits the fingerprint… the validation of my identity… doesn’t work very well. The result of this is that attempting to unlock my smartphone has become a partly magical endeavor.

Can I transmit the essence of my uniqueness into this device in sufficient »quantity (fingerprint ID is an accounting game, a game of numbers…) to unlock my phone, or will I have to »explicitly enter the code?

Each attempt is an adventure. I am trying to understand how to bypass the degradation of the membrane that, when it worked well, was transparent. But it is no longer transparent. Occulsions have arisen in the substrate of the membrane.

And what is it, analogically speaking, that this substrate grants me access to?

It is not merely a device, but rather, a representation of… a thing that is no thing at all… something intimate. Something impossible. Primordial. Divine.

What is it the successful negotiation of the membrane grants me access to? And if I have this representation of access, what is it that I am thereby denied?