Not being especially techy, I don't think much about robots. But last weekend I saw the Alex Garland film Ex Machina (all about robots). And recently I've been having my own problems with Siri, the robot in my phone. Asking for 'directions' has become a high stakes ordeal. Instead of giving incredibly precise GPS directions (as she used to), Siri now tears, at the speed of light, through my address book and randomly requests FaceTime with inappropriate people. SORRY if you've been among those.
And then I had a blinding flash: once upon a time, and maybe even up until right now, I've had a yearning to be robotic.
looking my robotic best in the Berlin Intl Film Festival catalogue
Soon after I moved to New York in 1978, I went into therapy with a kind and very quiet man on the Upper West Side. Wearing a friend's, ex-husband's, leather motorcycle jacket, I'd ride my bicycle from my job in midtown up to 90th or 91st Street and Central Park West, take the elevator up and lie on Dr. T's couch for an hour, covering my eyes when details were difficult to talk about.
For probably months of sessions, I rattled on and on (and on). And then one night, the good doctor cut me off: "I've heard a lot about a fair number of people in your life, but I think you came here to find out more about you, to get in touch with your feelings." Like it was yesterday, I remember practically shouting at the guy: "What? No! I came here so I could get through my creative blocks ... so I can do my work! I don't want to waste one minute on 'feelings'." Dr. T. chuckled in his shy and non-judgmental way: "Really! Most people come into therapeutic analytic psychotherapy so they can feel more!" (Pretty sure that's what he called it.) Shaking my head: "Nope. I don't want to feel anything. I just want to be like a machine and work work work. Efficiently. "
So it's with some surprise that, through a chain of events which seemed to lead me in spite of myself, I went yesterday to see a practitioner of Rubenfeld Synergy. Two new friends had gone and talked about almost mystical experiences of being connected to themselves and liberated from long-held blocks. After one session, it's looking likely that 'feelings' are the pathway to this liberation. And I'm wondering if 'feeling' is also the key to 'self-confidence', that ideal on the hill which has so effectively eluded me.
Hmmph. If only I'd taken Dr. T's bait offered so many decades ago. I'll keep you posted.