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.