Thread: Bats, Boxes, and Purposes: Falling in Love With Robots

Bats aren't blind, but they wish they were. If you are repeatedly told something it is driven into your heart and you want to become something. Bats echo-locate but they have excellent vision in light and night. If you tell a bat, "You're blind, aren't you?" he'll say no, but secretly he'll feel like he's breaking the expectation. Bats will never be able to feel happiness because they are constantly proving people wrong, which is not as gratifying as many hopeful intellectuals imagine it is. Those who go out of their way to expose mistakes and misgivings do not bring glory upon themselves but merely deprecate those around them. Instead of building a pedestal, you are digging a moat around the place you stand, causing everyone to fall beneath you. Your worth has not increased. Bats understand this is what happens, yet they cannot amend the situation because they cannot naturally be less than what everyone believes them to be. Bats understand that to be happy you must damage your own worth to please others, but it is difficult to muster the courage to do it. When you are a bat, you must blind yourself to be happy.

Put everything in boxes because that's what they're for. What's the point of having empty boxes? Put the things that weigh you down into boxes, seal them up, and they can last forever. In fifteen years you can find your boxes again, open it, and things won't be the same. They've become memories. They've been boxed for so long they don't mean anything to you, so they stay in the box. Boxes are murderers of fears and pain, but also the killers of hope and love. Sometimes you want to put good things in boxes because you're scared of them turning bad, but it's dangerous. Boxes don't know about time. The next time you open that box it might as well be empty. Boxes are the great vanquishers of good and evil, and they must be used. You must put things in boxes because that's what they're for.

Our purpose is to fulfill the purpose of other things. TV is meant to be watched. Books are meant to be read. Cars are meant to be driven. Chairs are meant to be sat on. Hearts are meant to be broken. Life is meant to be lived. By doing this we can fulfill our own empty and lonely purposes knowing that everything and everyone around us has reached their full potential. It is a trial of self-sacrifice, knowing that our purpose is not to ourselves. You can dress up as the generous optimist willing to go to any lengths for the joy of seeing someone else happy, but you do so by ignoring yourself. You might say "This makes me happy, seeing other people happy." No one on Earth has ever cut off his own foot for someone who does not have a foot and not say "Ow, why did I do that I want my foot back." Box it up. Hope lies in the belief that by fulfilling each others' purposes we are each in turn making each other happy and fulfilling our own. But we will never have the power to make ourselves happy. We have to rely on the world for that. We have to give and give and hope that somehow it will pay off for us. That is always in the back of our minds. What you don't know is that sometimes the world doesn't give back. We don't fulfill our purposes together. No matter how much you give and hope, that doesn't guarantee you'll get the same in return.



It's like falling in love with robots.

I liked it. I have slight differences of opinion on our purpose. Hearts, while unfortunately not having the immunity to be broken, aren't meant to be broken. They are there to give & receive love. So our purpose here, other than the obvious biological purpose, is to love & be loved. I personally also believe it's to work hard at whatever you love doing the most, because even if you never make a penny doing it, it fulfills you. Such as writing.

You're not always going to get what you give in return, but then again that's not why we give, most of us. It's also fulfilling to give to someone else, whatever that gift may be. But giving to yourself is just as important, isn't it? That's the dilemma because we can't always give to ourselves in the ways that we want. Embrace the things you're given. If you get what you really want past that it's pure joy.