Yesterday I watched A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Today I read a few reviews that analyze it more. It’s interesting to bring this movie up, even more so when talking about the situation with Styna.
The film is about a robot/android that is programmed to love. However, it’s a program, not actual emotions. Its purpose in life is to love and be loved by the person it imprints on. This obsession disguises itself as love; when the bot can’t fulfill its programming, it can’t move on. It can’t even “love” anyone else but who it is designed to.
When talking about myself, there have been times where I sound eerily like the robot who wants to be able to love his “mother.” But I am not a robot. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t act like one.
Do I have emotions for Styna, or have I programmed myself to think I do? Is this “love” a fixation where my purpose for existing is to be loved by and to love her?
Let’s look at this: Can I feel love for her without also being upset that I can’t perform the function of actually loving her?
My brain works differently; I don’t always understand it. When I sit down to write, it is extremely hard for me to “speak” from my heart instead of my brain. I can legitimately feel something, but to put it down, to document it, my mind and articulation is halfway between that of a human and a robot.
Do I really, truly love Styna? Yes. But when talking about my feelings in a “published” sort of way, the rational part of my brain dominates. As I try to work out my emotions on here, I am trying to rationalize what I am feeling. This rationalization is like a robot, going over the same things over and over again, but my feelings aren’t programming. Throughout the day, I legitimately have feelings for Styna. Whenever I try to address them, this right now is the way I sound.
I can come up with poetry and art in my head. I go to put it down, and now I have entered a process of translation where the art ends up with a mechanical touch.
I am better at showing love than finding multiple ways to express love. For example, I love my cat, but I express my love to her in basically the same ways every day, with subtle differences. I can do acts of love, say I love, have the appearance of someone who is in love, yet have trouble talking about it, because rationalizing love means you are trying more to explain it, instead of letting it take over and become more than an idea, but the wild, creative, passionate expression of the feeling.
So... yeah, I love Styna. A lot. In the process of typing that, though, I can’t guarantee the reader will feel the emotion that started me typing in the first place.