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



## UnknownBearing (Dec 15, 2011)

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.


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## CFFTB (Dec 21, 2011)

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.


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