Well. I live inside a robot. This robot has a default set of behaviors, remnants of older software. This software is the fundamental systems controller and while it works very quickly, it often makes poor choices but also good ones. For instance if the robots sees a short glimpse of something on the edges of its field of vision, where the light sensors are located, it will react quickly to avoid an attack before I am able to determine whether or not there is a real threat. If there is a threat, the software routine is great. If there isn't actually a threat, you might look a bit silly when you duck for no reason. In generally, it's probably better to be leaning towards the safe side of the fence than the risky side.

I guess you could say I am a decision-making engine. You see, the fundamental systems controller or FSC (you should stop smoking, by the way. you can choose your life for the better.) can't communicate with the storage engines. My long-term experiential storage or LTES is a where the robot keeps information that I use to make better decisions than the FSC (pronounced f-sick) could, but I necessarily take more time to do so. I make thoughtful decisions using the LTES (el-tess) and STES (es-tess) while the FSC reacts reflexively.

I guess you could call me ECIR, pronounced Escher, like the artist. I am a major subroutine that exists in the robot's processing unit. I am sort of the overseer of the android because I have the access to control or influence the behavior of practically all other subroutines. As you might imagine, a subroutine is a specific part of the CPUs programming that exists for a particular purpose. For instance there is a subroutine that turns the sounds of words into something meaningful that I can understand. There's a routine (the two can be used interchangeably) that lets me know when the robot requires food. In a sense, I am the owner and caretaker of the most capable piece of technology on the planet. And by capable I speak of our amazing ability to change and modify our environment.

The planet exerts about 845 Newtons of force against me at all times. The reason this happens is a force called gravity. My particular model of robot has two main support structures and two assistive limbs. These are generally referred to as arms and legs. On the end of each or the arms, there is five much smaller flexible limbs which work in unison as a grasping device. The legs also have (smaller still) limbs that are best suited for helping the foot grip the ground. Between the arms and legs is the abdomen. It contains all components that are vital to supporting the operation of the robot's central processing unit. Included is the processor's oxygen supply which is needed to sustain electrochemical reactions known mainly as thoughts but could also be considered actions.

The robot contains a biological digesting unit that dissolves proteins, carbohydrates and certain oils into chemical structures that are used for fuel and repairs. Aside from the chemical digesting unit, there is a plumbing system which provides a fluid called blood that provides oxygen and nutrients to every single cell in the body. The blood is pumped through the tubing with a very powerful device called the heart. The heart can squirt blood 30 feet. The blood receives oxygen through the lungs. The cleaner the lung, the more oxygen there is available to power the body's chemical reactions.

Did I mention there are TRILLIONS (1,000,000,000 = 1 trillion) of cells in my body? Every single one is a very complex machine in its own respect. Inside of every cell, there is a copy of the robot's source code. What is source code? It's essentially the instructions for building something, it's blueprints. The cool thing about these blueprints is that not only do they store the information needed to build such an awesome robot, but they actually perform the construction of the robot too! That would be like the piece of paper a blueprint was drawn/printed on getting up, walking out the door and building the house that was on it. THAT'S how amazing the technology that makes my body is.

Until we meet again...

You are the sole owner and operator of a humanoid robot. It has a processing unit whose capacity is among the most sophisticated on Earth. It uses 25 watts of energy and is powered by its own organic biodigestive intake manifold.

This robot has many flaws because it was not design, but evolved into a clumsily built, as if by happenstance, android that was only suited to survive against its environment.

But now, we are our own environment and the surroundings we once had to defend against has been replaced by each other.

The dynamics of human interaction is infinitely complex yet we seem to try making some sort of order out of it, as if we knew what order it should be in to begin with. It is absurd to think that we are anything but lucky to be in the position we are in. Rather we treat ourselves as rulers and masters when we are merely infantile students. On the scale of what is possible versus what we have achieved, we are still monkeys with tools.

We have really only been at least a little good at building a civilization for around two thousand orbits or Sol. What was successful in the past is not working anymore. The old system lacks in scalability and now has more individuals than it can handle without becoming unstable. It is clearly not very stable.

However, no person can hope to know what is best for society. No one person is that much more intelligent or worthy of speaking for so many, of making such important decisions or most importantly, making decisions for us.

There is but a single thing that exists that you have some semblance of control over. It is yourself. The Homo Sapiens Model 1986, January edition, here. It is the one thing I can control.

Most people try to control. When you try controlling things, they control you instead. If you control nothing, or very little, the world has very little control over you. If you try to control yourself, you become stressed. Stress is not control.

Control is having enough to control to let go. Instead of trying to control the incessant thoughts that plague your mind, let go of them, pay them no heed. Simply listen to yourself breathe instead. If you can do this always, you have control enough to let go of the chaos.

As a robot, you operate a certain way. Being that you have no chance of controlling your environment, you have no choice but to spend day after day working on your masterpiece.

Your body is a direct expression of your average, day to day state of mind. The way you care for one of the most sophisticated machines on Earth reflects just how much you appreciate life. This body is your masterpiece, the ultimate canvas, capable of anything imaginable, the most sublime expression of you. Yet we are content to live our lives dedicated to full-time consumption.

All we do is eat, watch, drive, breathe, drink, get drunk, fuck, sleep, browse, and die. This is our lives, this all we care to do. This is our true expression of self. We try to cover it up, to be something we're not, to be something we think will impress everyone else. The only person you need to impress is yourself.

Impress yourself by letting go of the petty things that don't matter. Letting go of all the fake drama of life and concentrating on what actually matters. Not money, fame, or even love are important in the world we live in. These are just things we do to occupy ourselves that we've taken a little to seriously.

What we all need to concentrate on is making ourselves excellent human beings we can imagine.

The problem is we've been given these examples of perfection that seem to be out of reach, as they are so far from what we are, so we don't even bother trying. It's much easier to dedicate life to consumption and comfort, you think.

Perfect is not achieved in a lifetime, so you better get started.

If you do not move towards being perfect, you have given up, become satisfied and quit trying. You take what you got and call it a day. At whatever age it is, you sit there the rest of your life, content, but in your own little made up fantasy bubble world. You have forced yourself to be something you are not. You are a fraud, wholly and completely. You cannot let go.

But you must let go of all of it. Everything that does not matter, that isn't important, whose time could be better spent doing something great with our resources.

Instead we play a wasteful theater of human drama, complete with wars, murder, starvation and revolutions. How could it possibly get anymore exciting than that? We are not great, we are murderers. We are not oppressed, we are the oppressors of ourselves. Maybe we should have real laws, like, don't being a fucking jerk. Or don't take more than you need. Or one for trying to exercise control over someone other than yourself.

Maybe we should have a society where the people that contribute the most things which matter are the highest respected individuals, rather than the ones that are on the television most.

If your body is a direct reflection of your state of mind, your actions are also an extension of your mind. The things you do is your mark on the world.

What if you break it down like follows? Your "score" in society, instead of how much money you earn, is how much karma you've earned. Karma is a general term for good things. It originated from the internet as a freely distributable form of currency which could buy nothing and was merely an indicator of whether or not you approve of something another person has said. In the societal sense, your karma would be how much you consume versus what you contribute to society, as judged by others. If everybody knew this number based on a stock-market-esque system, we could measure our improvement on a daily basis.

But this is not what we should do. What we should do is behave as if we were in this system, but without the system. If the system was there, it would result in abuse of the system. Humans are clever and will manipulate any system designed by other humans, mostly because they are greedy and power hungry, but also because we view it as a challenge. We are problem solvers. And right now, we are spending our time creating our own systems to solve and manipulate. Unfortunately, the largest systems, which some manipulate for fun, have a direct influence on everyone else.

We must abandon all systems, our former artificial selves, and become everything humans were meant to be.

When I got outside, where there should have normally been thousands of people, there was absolutely nobody. Not a single one.

I went back inside, took a look around, maybe for a clue. After about 20 minutes, I decided to go try again.

When I came back out, everyone was back to normal, the streets were filled, but more than that, things were still strange... I couldn't quite put my finger on it though. Nothing anyone was doing seemed out of place. It was just normal people doing regular things, things everyone does all the time, just...

Then I saw what it was. There were people smoking crack about half block away, in a small nook between buildings. People seemed not to care, but noticed, seemingly curious. A couple, having sex in public, discreetly and nobody even batted an eyelash. She was wearing a red and black knee-length skirt; you could barely even tell.

I walked down the street to see what else I could find to help make sense out of what was going on.

Walking into a convenience store, I saw a man leave without paying. I wanted to stop him, but something told me it would be wrong.

"Aren't you gonna make him pay for that?!?" I practically screamed at the employee, who just gave me a strange gaze, seemingly unable to properly formulate an answer to my question.

After receiving a blank look, I shrugged and picked out my favorite drink from the shelf in the back. I had never had it before, I didn't even recognize the brand name, but it was certainly the most delicious beverage I'm ever put my lips on.

I walked to the counter. It took a second, but I eventually noticed there was no cash register. Another blank look from the employee.

"What do I owe you?" I asked. Or maybe it was something like, "Are you going to ring these up?"

Still looking at me, bemused.

"Okay, I get it. I'm clearly a fucking alien speaking a foreign language. Maybe you just think I'm an idiot, but can you please explain to me why this convenience store is like no convenience store I've ever been in?"

I hadn't had a drink of my new favorite drink yet.

"Why don't you have a sip of your beverage?"

It was my turn to give the blank look, but after some eye shifting, I did.

I had no words for the flavor. I couldn't even tell you what a single ingredient might be. It was like... like it was just telling your tongue as authoritatively as possible: "I AM A DELICIOUS BEVERAGE."

I actually dropped the bottle from shock. My brain couldn't reconcile the deliciousness of what was supposed to be sugar water mixed with artificial flavors and preservatives. The intensity of the flavor, and not in a bad way, mind you, as is often the case with extreme deliciousness, was overwhelming to my senses and caused involuntary release of my grip, while my mouth desperately tried to drink more. I feel like if I were expecting it, I would not have dropped the bottle.

The glass shattered everywhere. I felt as though a close friend had died.

The store clerk snickered at me, knowingly, as if not to make too much fun.

"Did you know I was going to do that?" I interrogated him.

He chuckled, "No, of course not! How could I know something like that. It happens to everyone their first time, even if you are expecting it."

Quickly I changed the subject I asked how much I owed him. He told me I should go get another, that he would claim it broke before I purchased it and just mark it off as a loss on the records.

By the time I had returned, the mess was cleaned up. There wasn't even a wet floor sign where it was. In fact, there was no evidence of it at all. The glass shattered everywhere, the juice that was black in the bottle and intensely blue spread over everything in the vicinity and now you wouldn't even know it happened forty five seconds ago.

Knowing something weird was going on, I played it off like nothing at all, but I couldn't hide my initial disbelief quickly enough and I probably gave myself away.

I started over, completely, trying again.

"Would you stop me if I walked out the door with this?" I asked him.

"Yes, I would try." He replied, with a grin, his excellent beard moving instead of a mouth.

"You didn't stop the last guy. And he didn't pay, I saw him walk straight from the isle to the door."

"Oh, he paid, alright."

He didn't!.

"Before he got his delicious snacks? I bet they really are delicious, aren't they? How much for a delicious snack and a delicious drink?"

"As much as they are worth to you. Would you give me all the money in your wallet for the most delicious snack and drink you've ever had?"

As illogical as it sounded, I think I really would. I mean, how often do get to have the most delicious thing possible for the very first time in a convenience store clerked by a man that would be kind of creepy if he wasn't so genuinely easy-going, friendly and real.

For no reason at all, I felt like I could trust this person with a great deal, based solely on his personality and body language.

"Yes." I said, as I reached for my wallet. How much could I have, anyway? I'm usually broke.

When I opened it, I had at least seven thousand dollars in it, all in hundreds. Not broke today, apparently. In fact I'm certain this is more money than I've ever had at once.

Another knowing look from the would-be creepy store clerk, as he gently held out his hand for acceptance.

"I'm not paying you seven grand from a soda and honey-bun, dude."

"You just said you would."

"I didn't know how much money I had," I pleaded.

"Who doesn't know how much money they have in their wallet? Especially when it's seven gees my friend. A real person never backs out on their word, no matter what. And if you do, I'm never going to forget and neither will these cameras and I'm going to tell everyone I know and everyone I ever meet that you stiffed me on seven grand you agreed to pay. Didn't know how much you had.... yeah right."

I was speechless. I couldn't believe this was happening.

"They cost ten thousand, anyway." he replied.

My head spun. What was going on here?

I put my delicious items back on their shelves and started to make my exit, but the man was standing in the doorway instead of behind the counter.

"From what I can tell, you owe me about forty five hundred for that busted drink."

"You said you'd write it off."

"I thought you were going to buy a drink AND a snack after you broke it. It was just marketing, man. Now that's gotta come out of my pay because I didn't make the sale at the end."

"You said people don't go against their word. You would be if you made me pay for it."

"Ah I guess you're not quite dumb after all. I will pay for it from my own pocket, all forty five hundred of it. If you feel the need to owe me anything in return, I will be here for another two days."

And with that, he handed me, it seemed, the very bottle I broke, completely refilled with Delicious (minus the mouthful I had) that was all over the floor. When I got outside, I found out it was indeed my bottle, complete with all the shatter marks, as if it were perfectly glued back together, but it had actually worked.

Did I really just pay forty-five hundred dollars for this? That just doesn't even make sense. I mean, I didn't, but I still feel like I owe him for it.

The creepy guy came out the door as I was walking away. "Hey brother-man, don't forget your Frequent Shopper's Card!"

I took it, still a little irritated at the ridiculous purchase I had just made, and put it in my wallet, headed back to where I was tied up before thinking, why on Earth would I want to go back there?

I have not yet earned my freedom, it seems.

This title is everything in a nutshell, everything that causes pain in the world. Everybody wants profitable relationships from everyone else and that is their immediate goal.

In our society, we do not wish to build a profitable world in which everyone can exist harmoniously. The reason we cannot have a perfect world is because we DO NOT WANT it. We'd rather pay lip service to every other human we come in contact with.

WE WANT YOU TO BE OKAY WITH US STEALING YOUR MONEY.

We want to see how many different ways we can fuck you without you getting too upset about it.

This is our world, Animal Farm Incorporated.

But you don't see it. It's too comfortable in a warm pile of shit for you to care about anything. You're going to be dead before you can reap what you've sewn, so why should you care?

I'm here to tell you that we're doing everything wrong. I know you won't want to admit something like that, but it's true. And it hurts too much for you to even acknowledge it, ignorance is bliss.

What have you left for me to work with? A nation that's collectively at the bottom of a bottle, whose governing system is nearly indistinguishable from the most popular reality television shows, whose criminals sleep the best at night, whose bankers are employed to enslave those walking out of the nest.

You accept it as necessary, because things can't be any other way. You accept it because if your beloved capitalism and republic fail, then you have nothing to fall back on, you know no other ways.

By the time I came into this world, everything was bought and sold already. Civilization had already conquered all it could. I spent a large percentage of my life disillusioned by propaganda and now I'm waking up to the cold hard reality of my future.

Those who came before me left nothing for the future, nothing for me, my friends, my children or our health. They have sold me as a line item on China's debt collection invoices. My government guaranteed that I would slave my life away to ensure we repaid our debt to China. They have constructed society in a manner that ensures this happens.

I ask of my parents, who should be repaying who? You work hard not for yourself, but for the future. Without a future for the human race, all your effort was for naught. This is why you have created what you have worked so hard for all your life, this world for me to live in. However, you insist on doing things your way, when your time has obviously come and gone.

I don't owe you anything. It is you that owes me the opportunity to make things right.