Nothing Like Us

Have you noticed that a surprising number of to go cup lids are very poorly designed? I just bought a latte from the cafe across the street from the conference I'm attending this weekend, and the moment I returned to the lecture hall to set up my laptop, I found my sleeve covered in coffee. If something is poorly designed, shouldn't it be replaced by a superior model? How hard is it to design a lid that does not leak? Maybe it's too trivial to merit much attention. But what if it annoys you every, single day? You might think about changing it, just to make life more bearable.

That's actually the theme of the paper I'm about to present. You see, I think there is a lot to learn from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, but I don't think we read it very well, as a rule. Incest. Patricide. Regicide. They get all of the headlines, and they certainly should. We love ghastly spectacle. We're not sure if works of art have a particular meaning unto themselves though, no matter what some pompous "expert" tries to tell us. If you want truth, see the people in the STEM programs.

But hold on a second. Just think for a moment about the specific, strange conditions that are in place when the tragedy begins. A plague is underway in Thebes, the city of which Oedipus is the king. He's a pretty confident fellow. He's sure he knows the score, and he's quite pleased with himself and the life he has carefully put together for himself. He's a heroic savior, the kind of bloke that outwits a monster and saves the whole town. He's married to a beautiful queen, and his people look up to him like a benevolent father.

The plague screws all of that up. It shows him the truth about himself, and word gets around. His beautiful queen turns out to be his mother. I kid you not. He realizes that he killed his father and a king with one blow. Jocasta, his wife/mother, tries to tell him that everything is governed by chance. Then she finds out the real deal about their relationship, from a reliable source, and decides to end her own life. The guy is blind and in exile by the time it's over.

What if this is a representation of what plagues always do? Plagues change culture. They create the conditions for tragedy. Suppose our world seems fragile and arbitrary. Suppose we discover that all of the marvelous stories we told ourselves about who we are, and what our lives mean, turn out to be bullshit. What then? Who are we, when everything about our ordinary lives is radically altered? You've got to hand it to Oedipus. He sends his uncle/brother-in-law, Creon, to ask the oracle. It's an odd thing for him to do, because he's used his own wits to accomplish great things before. As I mentioned, he outwitted the Sphinx, which was demanding human sacrifice, because no one else could solve a clever riddle. The riddle goes something like this (translations are tricky): what goes on four legs in morning, two at noon, and three in the afternoon? The answer is a human being, over time. Infants and children crawl around on four limbs. Adults are more confident about their bipedal locomotion, and act like it. As people age, they come to rely upon canes and other sources of support in the war against gravity. Gravity wins more and more as we age. We're embodied. It's just basic physics.

So the answer to the riddle defeats the monster and saves the whole place. Oedipus figures it out. Instantly, he's literally king of the joint. Then the plague makes him, and most of the people around him, lose it. They become convinced that Apollo, a god, brought the plague because of things Oedipus did. Oedipus doesn't know himself very well. He pulls an O.J. He goes in search of the real killer, who turns out to be Oedipus himself.

He's just a human being. The only thing that is certain is that he will grow old and die. Being a hero? Being a king? Being beloved and admired? Knowing that you know what you are doing and that you are doing it well? The plague is acid in which all of that dissolves. Oedipus ends up in exile, covered in shame, and blind by his own hand. This is what plagues do to culture. They strip away everything by bludgeoning us with the truth about ourselves.

So then we've got to ask: we're just dying animals, so how should we behave? And the answer is in the play. Like dying animals. Not like royalty. Not like a celebrity. Not like a hero. Oedipus was a hero. Look where he ends up. He thought all of the beautiful fiction was always going to be true. So we shouldn't lie to ourselves, or be blind to the truth about ourselves. We should be mindful of the fact that we are dying animals when we make decisions and shape our culture, our politics--everything we make ourselves, as opposed to just having to live with it because it was like this when we got here. We can't vote gravity out of office.

Oedipus was himself all along. He just didn't know himself. Being dying animals is something we just have to do. But how we do it? That's up to us to figure out, and art helps. Making life more bearable for dying animals should be job one, though. That's what unites us, in the end. All of us. No matter who we think we are, or how we look, or how old we are, or how happy, or how powerful, or how sure of ourselves we may be at the moment, all of that is going away pretty quickly, often in shocking, disgusting ways. As long as we're around, though, we'll be dying animals.

What's that like, where you live? Where I'm from, it kind of sucks. The to go lids are just the beginning. We can't even get that right, at the moment.

* * *

They hated the paper. I do like drinking with other nerds after the boring, painful rituals of a conference are over, though. They loosen up and tell you what they really think, the besotted egg heads. It's great. It turns out that they don't buy half of what they're selling.

They are guided by fashion when they search for truth, many of them. As I mentioned, there are still huge rips in the curtain of culture, because of the plague. Most people are desperately trying to figure out how to pretend that everything is back to normal, but they keep finding out that it's not, and it drives them nuts. Truth has become whatever you like best at the moment, as far as lots of people are concerned. They get angry if you question them, or try to remind them of the basic truth about themselves. Oedipus insulted and threatened an old, blind prophet named Tiresias, first because this old man--a blind seer with an impeccable reputation for finding out what's true, because you don't need to see the world as it is at the moment to know what's always true--is treated terribly.

Tiresias refuses to tell Oedipus the awful truth. Oedipus let's him have it with both, verbal barrels. Tiresias gives in. "It was you all along, dude. You're Oedipus. You killed your dad, the king, in a fit of road rage, stumbled into his home, which used to be your home, solved a huge problem there and took over. You are sleeping with his wife, your mother." Oedipus insisted, so the files are shared.

Oedipus calls him a liar and a conspirator. Not a conspiracy theorist, mind you. He accuses him of plotting against him, and implicates his uncle/brother in law too. But the truth is that Oedipus is just a dying animal who does terrible things because he doesn't know what he's doing. If you know you haven't much time for bullshit because you know you're dying, you'll act like it. Road rage? Please. The whole system can break down any time. In fact, it's wobbly on the best days. What counts when it's on the blink?

There's a guy from robotics here who is kind of interesting, though. He keeps asking me to give him proof that I'm human and buying me a drink if I get it right. I told him that I can admit it when I'm wrong. He liked that one.

I've had too much to drink. I spilled my guts about being lonely and incapable of doing anything about it to the guy from robotics. Tequila has always impaired my ability to lie while robbing me of the ability to walk with any confidence at all.

He thinks I'm too picky. He has no idea how much I've learned. Staff. Faculty. Administration. Even a mature student. I've been pinned and wriggling on the wall, in the lamplight downed with light brown hair.

I thought of one. I probably shouldn't have another drink.

***

There's someone in my room. I mean, someone else. I've checked the room number seven times. I know I did not leave music on. There's somebody in there. You know how you know that. I know it in that, same way. A coward calls the front desk under these circumstances. I am no hero, but I'm not a coward.

Shit. The guy from robotics sent a synth to my room. Asshole. I have to read the soulless nonsense robots write for my students. This was not a good idea.

"Albert?" She's sitting on the bed when I walk in. The clones of real songs are playing. Who likes that channel, instead of just clicking on it to have something on while you focus your attention elsewhere? Who wants to live, all the time, in an elevator?

She's a synth. I'm not fooled. I'm not sure they make much effort to pretend, anymore. They've become one of those things we just live with. But we made them. We actually spend time and energy improving and maintaining them. They are not dying animals like we are.

"As far as I know. I'm sorry, but I think there's been a mistake. I'm sure this is very inconvenient, but you ought to leave, alright?"

There's a delay while the synth sorts things out behind imitation eyes. These lapses are rare these days, but they happen. It's a mechanical imitation of aporia, I think. None of the standard answers match the prompt. Searching...searching...searching...

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Albert," she says, "Haruto said you would be uncomfortable. He also said that you are lonely and unhappy. Is that true?"

"Of course, but I'm sure this hotel is filled with people like me who would be happy to see you. You're here by mistake, you see. Haruto has been drinking. So have I. People shouldn't make decisions and plans, for themselves or other people, after drinking heavily. I know that's heresy in some places, but it's a fact." I start rummaging through the little fridge where needless things are held for an outrageous ransom. Tiny bottles give me come hither looks for a moment. Steady. The chocolate. That's fine. I won't regret that when I see the bill. Not much, anyway.

"I understand," she says. Right. Like she has any idea. She wasn't born yesterday. She wasn't born. How can she possibly understand? "But Haruto said that you are lonely and unhappy. He cares about you. He did not send me to people like you. He was quite specific. He is sure I can help you. Don't you think he could be right?" Her voice is mellifluous, I'll give you that. I don't feel like Alexa is debating with me at two in the morning in my hotel room. It's no miracle, but it's progress.

I don't much care for the chocolate. If my talk causes a revolution and I am given tenure, or a throne of some kind, I'll think about the Macadamia nuts and vodka. Send a Polish explorer to Hawaii. I'm drunk.

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I very much doubt that. You see, in order to help me, you'd have to be a being like me, but you're not. I'm sure you're a very nice, charming, interesting being. But you're not one like me, so you have no idea what I'm going through. Objectively, sure. But the feeling of what happens when I'm me? That's all I've got, and you don't have one."

Searching...searching...it shouldn't feel like a moral victory, each time the synth does that. But it does.

"What is it like, then? Help me to understand." Synths. They're training them more and more diligently. While education for dying animals rots. Priorities. Sending envoys to the synthetic oracle, while the plague ravages our homes.

"The game is ending, and I didn't enjoy it."

"I see." No delay this time. Shit. I could have done better. Maybe I do need that vodka after all. No. I have to get some leaky coffee in the morning, and get on a plane. There will be 'incidental expenses.' It's very embarrassing when your card doesn't clear when all you were after was a mediocre lunch.

"Was there anything you liked, or was it a complete waste of time?"

"Reading excellent, difficult books. Arguing about what they mean. I had friends and lovers. They come and go, talking of Michelangelo. I'm still drowning." Alright, alright. A little heavy on the Terribly Sexy Eliot, I know. Will the synth latch on to that, do you think?

"I will sing for you, if you like. A mermaid is not a being like you, right? But she can sing a song you can hear and understand."

Touché . Apparently she's got the Western Cannon cued up. Haruto. The tequila pried all kinds of secrets out of me. There was time for a hundred visions and revisions before the taking of too many toasts. I couldn't help it. I still can't.

"Please don't. Look, I'm tired and quite drunk." I sit down in that weird, voyeur's chair that seems to be mandatory in hotel rooms. As I said: things aren't working out for our culture at the moment. "Can't you just tell Haruto that everything went well and collect your fee and move on? I'll tell him it was all very nice."

Searching...searching...searching

"I am sorry you are unhappy. I have never had a penis of my own, but I am extensively trained in the art of making people with penises exquisitely grateful for their anatomical good fortune. I can simulate 4, 352 distinct characters, each with her own unique personality, skills, and if you are excited about that kind of thing, exotic kinks. I am at your service, because Haruto cares about you. Why not?"

I admit it. I'm searching.

"I'm sorry. I can't mate with a mermaid, or a synthetic person, or anything other than a human being, like me. It's a broad range, don't get me wrong. I'm a boring, vanilla, cis male, or whatever, and I'm heterosexual. So that narrows the field a bit, but not much. Someone who isn't human, though? I just can't. You weren't born. You can't die. It wouldn't help."

"How do you know?"

"It would just be a different way of being alone."

"What if you liked it?"

I didn't.

“Thank you,” I say, as the synth is leaving. “I think I know what I have to do now.”

“What do you have to do?”

“Write some of this down before I forget it.”

“I have a perfect record of everything, if you’d like to see it.” It sounds like a weather report. Charming, breezy. No inkling of the banal horror of the recording at all.

“No you don’t,” I reply. “I was the only one there.”