Technological Utopian Splendor

The robots are coming. They will beep into transcendence.

Obliterate death. Eradicate disease. What is left to humbly

abide? In the Book of Job God presents a litany

of unanswerable questions. The idea to be awed by that

which we cannot understand, and so to create

compassion. Sorrow remains, always. The robot makers

have looked through molecules dancing on a shoreline

two steps away from bay windows shining home, and

now can reply to God. No longer is it humbling to fathom

the orbit of planets, the size of the earth, the abyss

in a canyon at the bottom of the ocean. We understand

and create. Time stops still. Our desire remains

to overcome fear. A fear of death. A fear of nothingness.

It could be all over. Zero. Nothing. Just like that. Ashes

to ashes. Dust to dust. Done. Or there could be something

different. Something else. A flow into the universe?

An experience of the godhead? A sparkling light? Uncle Joe

at the end of a tunnel welcoming us home? We just don’t

know. Change is the only constant. Maybe we will

bottle ourselves into machines. Walking talking

bionic beings. Maybe we’ll become brains percolating

in communal jars. Perhaps we’ll learn to set ourselves free

and dance with dolphins under the sea. Maybe we’ll just keep

doing what we’ve always done. Imagine

the edge of the world. When Columbus set sail, his crew

took on the possibility that a cavernous gaping jaw

would swallow them whole. Masts, sails, crew, rope,

even the rum, down the leviathan’s throat.