Veiled Enactment of Superiority
Robotic, Abandoning, Still
Androids don’t care what happens to other androids . . .that’s one of the indications we look for.
Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?
This image depicts two well-prepared adults in proximity who have picked each other carefully and are compatible in important ways. They engage in rational methods of problem-solving and find satisfaction in their capacity to make commitments, to break through barriers. They can present themselves as savvy, ambitious, even heroic, and call themselves a Power-couple. However, they are so focused on meeting machine-like expectations and demanding tasks, they grow cold to the touch, often sexless. And, eventually, do not know who they each are to the other.
Like the Colonizer, we find they are Working for Power. Having forgotten what was most important (Powerful Work), they embraced their isolation. They may call their own existential position negotiating, compromise, ever efficient and responsible, but they are really focused on having power over others.
Why This Painting?
We might name the Android couple Super-Reasonable, Intellectualized, Strategized, or Nerd or Schizoid, Cold Fish etc. At core they are limited in relationships because novel pathways and passions and heart-felt connections are invisible to them. They are too distracted by the details of the details to see the inner depth and spiritual breath, and they arrogantly discount Mindfulness, Flow or Attunement as just ghosts in the machine. Extraordinary defensive contraptions stuck in their wiring, running on well-worn tracks, cut off from meaningful change, in families, they often leave a legacy of fragmentation, intolerance, and anxious depression.
If this speaks to you currently, then perhaps your Heart longs to live with more ardor and enthusiasm, and your eyes are opening to a lack of energy. Powerful-Work is learning how, and when, and to whom, to stay open. When discouraged, many of us settle for Working for Power, even readily cocreate the rules and expectations that now constrain us. Reflect on the state of your most important relationships. There may be great unrealized potential but only if you acknowledge courageously that you are unable to breathe in a cage.
It is vulnerable work to get beyond automatic and to understand how the artificial became so dominant. Reach out to someone who can listen without judgment, preferably someone who will not just give advice or impose their own wiring and projections and conceptual delusions.
Inside-Out:
There are many roles—parent, spouse, professional etcetera—that we take in the world. But if you are not careful, they become tightening containers. In psychodrama, this is called role-neurosis, an increasing feeling of being trapped by rigid rules and unsustainable expectations.
Though you may have benefited from adhering to a role, obtained great success, found excitement even, Android dreams are eventual nightmares. Acknowledge if you are feeling trapped, rather than pushing down your feelings or using methods to numb yourself. Begin to talk about what you are experiencing. If everything has become too predictable, it might be optimal to close a door (at least temporarily) so you can focus on a new threshold, where you might feel some fire again and regain your freedom. Where can you play without shutting down? Where can you find novelty and excitement?
Upside-Down:
It might seem preferable to be a machine, a robot, an android. Such beings (or non-beings) can evaluate at length what is in front of them, set an agenda that will be followed unvaryingly. They stay narrowly focused on the appearance of things. They are disconnected from their body, undistracted by the human heart. Productive. Programmable. Perfect for our materialistic consumer society that elevates machine-like transactions.
If you have become aware that you are constrained in an Android transaction, consider conveying your concerns, and offer ways to spark more spontaneity and creativity, though this will likely be received with a stoney face, or heard as a criticism. A robotic partner may cajole you or invalidate you; they may even threaten to abandon you, which is our oldest fear. You may feel like the child whose caregiver stares at you, forms a humorless smile, or speaks brilliant words that are irrelevant. Predictably our Heart response to such emotional abandonment (call it what it is) is disbelief, distress, depression, and self-doubt. But trust your gut. Living without warmth is unsustainable, and it will make you physically ill.
