At Schiphol robots seemed to be everywhere. One customer service robot in a gift shop reminded me of the robot in the new series Sunny; a cleaning robot repeatedly bumped into people in the lounge and spun around aimlessly. Yeah, the robots are everywhere. Where else will they take charge?
With more distance from humanity – either via being served by robots or by isolating in the forest, I wonder about things like… that unique terror that comes over us when we face sudden death and loss. Being gripped by the urgency of now – the cavernous hole that opens up with a fresh absence and the action that tries to launch in us.
When my friend E and I made plans to meet after many years, we were just days from the lifting of Covid lockdown border closures. And before we could nail down a plan to meet, which was only a few days after we had spoken, I learned that E had died suddenly. And this made me want to seize life with greater gusto – after all, we can’t wait because we don’t know what will happen. And yet, that urgency fades – fairly quickly. We make our excuses. Where do those feelings of exigency go?
Losing E didn’t make me take any action on connecting with others in more real ways. I thought about it. But did nothing. In some cases, the losses aren’t those kinds of connections. Earlier this year I wrote about a distant friend who passed away suddenly but who had not been a close or integral part of my life in decades. It’s a shock to the system when confronted by this kind of loss, but also not one where you regret not having taken action because it’s not that kind of friendship.
Similarly, a former manager in a former job suddenly died only weeks after I had last spoken with her. We had made plans to speak regularly and compare notes on writing. She had spoken frequently about how she would undoubtedly outlive her much-older husband (she didn’t). It was a shock but somehow after experiencing a string of these early-and-too-soon-gone deaths around me, the shock, though present, feels like numbness and doesn’t spark action.
I haven’t felt minded as I once did to reach out to people from the past to reconnect. I am as much in contact as I want to be with most of the people I care about. Sure, I may not see them as much as I would like – but I make the effort to stay in touch. Those who don’t reciprocate, I can’t do very much about (and they probably don’t wish to be in contact with me; their prerogative). Perhaps in my own way I have become my own robot, taking in data about the people around me (and their demise) but not doing or feeling anything human in response.
Not that you were suggesting as much or otherwise, but this made me think… You could be programmed as a robot to stay in touch with friends and acquaintances you’ve made in person but are no longer geographically close to, perhaps based on an algorithm of initial frequency of encounters, rapidity and warmth of conversation, presence or absence of hugs. But this robotic checking in would have no meaning, compared with the checking in one does as a caring human, whether weekly, monthly, annually, when we think of someone often and fondly but our lives, kids, jobs, hobbies, mortgages overwhelm us so much that we rarely recognise (if we’re even conscious enough to look for) the windows of opportunity to reach out and demonstrate our affection. The robot is probably unable to weigh true and deep affection and acceptance against shallow, or ongoing frequent engagement against occasional intense reconnection. And the robot is unlikely to question the algorithm, or wonder if its response suggests a lack of caring or connection, and then blog about it!