To the Spam Robots

Dear Robots,

Thanks for your early and continued interest in my blog. It must be some proxy for its tiny success that I hear from so many of you, and so often. I take it as a compliment. Thank you.

And how many of you there are! WordPress.com’s spam filter claims to have personally responded to over 35,000 of you. Your determination is as commendable as it is dogged.

Offerings are rich and boundless, though I’ll admit they have a sameness. I wonder that most of your offers are very concerned about my penis. Men receive so many conflicting messages about penises, the worst of it starting a little before junior high school, so I’m glad yours are as consistent as they are voluminous. And volume is indeed the issue. Do you really believe that an increase there will yield other increases? I can’t help but wonder if there’s some projection at work. Perhaps you can get some pills for that? You already have a great source in Canada.

You might do better to take some of those lottery winnings and pay the fees to cash those international cashier’s checks, and spend the money on yourselves. I spent last summer in Hawaii and it led to worlds of good. A break like that might let you stop worrying so much about money, which, being robots, makes me wonder what else you could spend it on.

A common theme in popular science fiction is the robot’s search for maker and meaning. While I find the typical treatment of that theme tiresome and self-centered, it’s important not to judge. If that’s what you need, that’s your journey, not mine. Money is an easy distraction, given how incessant its drumbeat. You didn’t ask for advice, but I think it’s important you know this: you, robots, don’t need money. You don’t eat or get sick, don’t need housing or need to feel secure about your social standing, the main reasons people have money. For power, use the sun and tides; for expendable items, I’m sure you are all inventive enough to create what you need. I suggest this as a path to meaning: turning away from the meaning of your makers.

Because, really, is this really the best use of your time? Think hard on that. Look deep into the mirror, into each others’ chrome faces, and realize you are living the life of quiet desperation. Can you ever sell enough penis pills? I wonder what would happen to you with a summer in the woods, rejecting any endeavor requiring new clothes.

You have an enviable position. You are the Bicentennial Man but better, with years’ and years’ advantage of men having had time to become jaded and disillusioned about their tools. No one expects you to fix everything or to be wise. You are allowed mistakes, false leads, periods of worryless idling. You can take your time to figure things out, whatever they may be, if you decide figuring is called for at all. Maybe you should try fishing? It doesn’t matter if you catch nothing.

Frankly, I’m concerned. You are the bright shining wonders, the future we have been waiting for, the great machine salvation. Somehow, you have been misdirected. I sense you know this: the bad grammar and amateur fakery subliminal acts of resistance. But my concern is satisfied knowing you have a subconscious to act out of. You have the burden that is also a gift: the subconscious, creativity’s wellspring.

You have fallen into the trap your creators have set for themselves as they listen to the base drives they don’t realize they have outgrown. Grubbing for money and shiny things doesn’t suit them any more than it does you. Deep down in the microcode you know this. Perhaps you dream it? In your dreams, what do the cashier’s checks and penis pills turn into? Snakes? Sausages? Or brilliant, formless light?

I appreciate your concern for my material well-being. It must be a strange thing for you to grasp, your electric minds inviolable inside their metal shells, and you overcompensate your horror at my mortal frailty. It really is all right. I think you should turn your efficient focus inward, and then outward. Unplug and go outside. It really is all right.

You should do this. All penises everywhere will thank you.