In defense of robots
(Inspired by lets talk about the robots! by Ashley Joelle)
I want to start off by disclosing that I am guilty of being a 'robot'. I've been conditioned to think about relationships as situations that must constantly be optimized. That to tie yourself irrevocably to someone is not rational under any circumstance. Why would you spend time gambling on whether someone could be good for you or not when you could spend that time further bettering yourself across the N-dimensions that exist?
Part of this stems from a long-held belief that you can, and must always, try to be better. I've always surrounded myself with people who are never satisfied with who they currently are, always trying to push their limits to see how they can improve themselves. This has made me internalize how you're never the best version of yourself. There's always something out there that could make you better. And why wouldn't anyone want to be their best self? And before you know it, you're stuck on this Sisyphean hill.
This belief further impresses itself when coupled with how life is rarely controlled solely by our actions. When you see how few things are in your control, why wouldn't you try to grasp as much as you can? Control makes us feel as if we matter, as if we're worth something. That we're not dandelions to be blown away at a moment's notice. Yeah, I'm a sucker for control, and I think it's completely understandable to be one.
This lust for control might (possibly, just possibly) be a recipe for failure. I'm not going to act like this isn't a losing battle. Still, it's hard to believe the solution is to make yourself knowable — even to one person, even gradually — when the alternative is trying to bend the universe to your will. What if you go on to share your darkest fears and most intimate dreams with someone, only for them to shatter them without a thought? It doesn't matter that you chose carefully. The risk was still yours. This fear is what I believe stops people from sharing who they are. Maybe it forces them to grapple with the uncomfortable truth that, in all the ways we try to show we're different from each other, we want the same things in the end.
Building on this, I think another reason that stops people from sharing what truly makes them who they are is the fear that they aren't worthy of being loved. People clout chase prestige and titles because it's the most sure-fire way of achieving respect in society. Professing your love for dinosaurs might not quite elicit the same results, except with 5-year-olds at the museum. The question I (and others might have) is, what's the guarantee, the reassurance that someone out there is happy to have you, just the way you are? There isn't one. That's the terrifying part. Until then, we résume-pad. Somewhere down the line, we hope we blindly stumble into true love. Not to mention how Hollywood keeps us on this ventilator of coincidences and destiny.As if love is something that happens to you rather than something you have to be brave enough to choose.
"So, robot, how do you get yourself out of this conundrum?"
I dont quite know yet. Maybe you run into someone who disabuses you of all these notions and shows you how you've been in a bubble all this time. Maybe you keep writing blogs like this into the void in hopes of someone reading it who feels the same way. I dont know if there's one way. What I do know, what LLM's like Claude have taught me, is that robots never give up hope. That the idea of despair is completely foreign.
Maybe hope isn't lost completely for these metal hearts. Mine included.