Standing on the Hill

Standing on the Hill
Our Human Destiny

My web administrator posted Kaitlan Collins’ interview with Brian Butler. I glanced at it. I had never seen or heard about him until the interview. He had a pleasant mix of honesty and guts. He is a role model for all of us. There I sat, replicating a Träumerei-esque experience. As various ideas floated around in my brain, I recalled another recently written article, Resurrecting the Quest of Men in Black. In that essay, I wrote about neuralyzer to help MAGA and regular Republicans to think more clearly.

In I, Robot, Will Smith plays a detective named Del Spooner from Chicago. Spooner has some issues with all robots, in particular Sonny. Sonny is attempting to move from being a robot to being more like a human. Interestingly, Sonny has the same quest for honesty as Butler.

In the process of becoming more human, Sonny has a dream and tells Spooner about it. Sonny draws a picture of a man on the hill whose reason for being there is to free the slaves, i.e., the robots.

After Sonny draws a picture of his dream of a man on a hill near a partially destroyed Mackinac Bridge, he asks Spooner if he agrees with him that we all have a purpose in life. Sonny adds, “This is the place where robots meet. Look, you can see them here as slaves to logic. And this man on the hill comes to free them. Do you know who he is?” He gives Spooner the picture of his dream because it might mean more to Spooner than it does to him. Spooner attempts to correct Sonny. Spooner tells Sonny that he’s the man on the hill. Sonny rejects Spooner’s assertion. “Because the man in my dream—the one standing on the hill—it is not me…it is you.”

By the end of the movie, Spooner and Sonny become friends. Finally, a humans and a robot can reach out to each other in friendship.

Then Sonny pauses for a moment and adds this haunting one-liner.

Spooner tells Sonny that we all need to find a way to help others become free.

It seems that I, Robot, is a sci-fi metaphor for what Brian Butler was saying. Be honest and do what is right. We are here for a finite amount of time. Use your time wisely. I have written about one of the mantras I came up with years ago. It is in giving that we get. Life is about sharing. Without sharing, you have nothing, and you have wasted your time. Trump is an old man without anything of value for his life.

On Seeing the Light