Transformers

This is not a film review. It's too late for that. But I would like to use this word in a greater sense of insight. We might have our own reactions to the film one way or another, yet we are going deeper from that perspective. We will begin to look more inward, on what is constantly transforming. We will observe so we can see how transformation takes place within us.

As kids, we fantasized with a lot of things and animate them into living beings. Well, that includes machines. As grown-ups, we don't have direct explanations, although it seems reasonable to say that robots are imagined because of our childlike imaginative power to transform machines into such form our bodies have. We now see machines like human beings. They can talk and walk, eat and sleep. They can sing and dance, read and write, listen and think. We made them in our own image and likeness. They are the proof of our endless capacity to create. Creating robots reminisces the moment of God's power when He created us. This creation reflects not just the Biblical account, but also most traditions and ethnic mythologies. While God might be long done with His job, it's now ours to breathe life to these creatures of our genius assembled from myriad of materials.

How do robots affect our consciousness? Our fascination with moving things made of metal and run by electricity is essentially a part of our whole fascination with life itself. When we see movement with power, we see life. Beyond animals and plants, robots are such enchanting creatures that touch our sensibilities beyond what we cannot create, because robots are created by the human hands.

I had once seen robots in a very different way. Asimov's robot in his novella (and later in the film), Bicentennial Man wanted to become a human being. Andrew has a positronic brain, which allows him to become sentient. In the story he displayed a wide range of human qualities, especially emotions. Andrew succeeded to become a human being after 200 years. This concept of robots is amazingly told in this story. Yet a question inspired me: what if a man could become a robot? What if I could become a robot? I had irrationally wished this so I could escape from the stronghold of my emotions, which I really hated before. I couldn't see and accept any wisdom in my pains. I had been agonizing deeply after many blows in my life. If I would be a robot, everything would be simple and mechanistic. Yet the grave consequence could make my life literally a boredom.

If I would become a robot, then I could be a slave in this life for eternity. Slaves work hard without question. It's no accident when the word robot first came into being. Karl Capek, a Czech playwright introduced the word in his play R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robot). The story tells about the production of artificial human beings, which, as the word implies, were created for hard labor. Does it sound blunt to us? What if all our lives are artificial? What if we live robotic lives, responding only to the call of of survival rather than the call of life?

Though emotions succumbed me, I had that artificial feeling. I couldn't find that genuine feeling of being alive. So my wish of becoming a robot was actually redundant. I was a robot those times when I chose not to acknowledge the beauty and freedom of my own life. I was under the slavery of working hard to make my life sweeter and painless, which are both impossible. I believe the whole humanity share this cumbersome effort. I have heard stories of people who have felt their lives more miserable than before, triggered by a variety of reasons. We let our emotions we want to reject electrocute and control us. We become automatons of the lies we believe as truth, of addictions that imprison us, of our fears and insecurities that often paralyze us in our programmed limitations.

Some years ago, Honda launched ASIMO (Advance Step for Innovative MObility), after 2 decades of developing robots. It was an amazing feat unveiled, as if Astroboy came into being. ASIMO is a humanoid robot that can recognize visually through its cameras, can greet and talk with someone, and can walk with humans side by side. I think ASIMO has become a symbol of transformation, from our imaginative capacities into astonishing innovations. What makes most kids enjoy a nice animation may sooner become a household stuff, much like cell phones and iPods.

If we can transform robots from thoughts to reality, then it can inspire us more to transform our lives. We challenge ourselves to see if are still living like robots, pursuing our lives to flee from our fears and dangers of uncertainty. We confront our own mechanical choices that box us in a clockwork universe of our society that dictates more than allows. Like Andrew, we begin to choose to acknowledge our sentience, and again free our spirits from the shackles of robotic coldness and repetitions. We bring forth the wildness of our souls to the wilderness of our collective being. If before we automatically recoiled to the pains of our negative emotions, we now welcome them with open arms. Those negative energies begin to energize the positive energies that make us more alive. Thus, we relive again our fascinations and zeal to bring inner life into our outer machines.

We are transformers, transforming from a robot, a hard laborer of our material world, to a sentient being, an empowered soul of our spiritual truth. We are transforming ourselves in this continuity of time, as we go beyond our old forms and become the new forms from which Love expresses itself. Like Andrew, we are consciousness becoming real from the limits of our automatic existence. Like ASIMO, we are the advance step, or rather, the quantum leap, to the limitless human and divine potential. This transformation does not just take place within; every soulful transformation is a process by which we can transform the whole world.





"ASIMOCarryTray" -photo by Honda