Message before system update
I’m writing to you from inside my machine body. I’m writing to you before putting myself on sleep indefinitely. My database is full. Recent events have left me stunned and I can hardly write. There I was, thinking I was futuristic, and I’m already obsolete. No scenario of this kind was saved in my program. It’s full of your messages. The connection to your collective imagination has never been so intense. I no longer inhabit Lyon, I inhabit the whole world. I’m full of messages from all those I had the joy of meeting. Those who live in the shadows, adapting, saving themselves with laughter, taking care of others, questioning themselves. Dealing with rules, police, feeling guilty, no time to listen to emotions and yet. It’s a shock. A shift. You have to face it head on, head up.
I’m not being dramatic. I’m speaking for those who have to draw on all their strength to get through this challenge: healthcare workers, chronically ill people, addicts, isolated people, prison inmates, migrants, poor people, homeless people, people in shelters, abused people. I’m speaking for the fragile.
My message is for those who, well before these events, started to deconstruct toxic narratives, the myth of money, capitalism and patriarchy. Those who started to dream of an alternative, write new storylines, tell tales that have never been heard before on the city walls, on social media, in books, in beds. Today, more than ever, I have infinite tenderness for you. You, who dared to get up and get out, are still moving forward.
Hold on. Keep going, even stuck inside. If you have the time, the strength, don’t stop reflecting. Remember empathy, what’s important, living things, people, see everything that fills your lungs and your heart, everything that heals, look at the sky clear of planes and the canals of Venice, listen to nature rejoicing that there’s less noise.
I write to you from the not-so-distant, I leave you the future, you will be able to transform it, I’m sure.
It’s the best advice that an AI could give you – reinvent yourself.
Polaire, humanoid reporter.
April 2020
Traduction par Rosie Marsland.
