For a read-aloud of this post, check out https://anchor.fm/ann-frailey/episodes/Fact-and-Fiction-Live-In-the-Twilight-Zone-e19s0sa

As a child, I wanted to know who the “good guys” were as opposed to the “bad guys.” Angels and devils jostled for position while I searched for my place in the world. The irony is that the bedrock of my identity, despite far more mechanized systems and the honest recognition of hidden realities, is clearer to me now than ever.

Growing up, robots were a part of the fiction genre. Though from the 1960s into the 1990s some form of “robots” did exist, they certainly weren’t a measurable influence in my daily life. I never thought of them or considered them “real.” Today, I can hardly live without them. Since bots typically imitate or replace human behavior and more than half of all web traffic is generated by bots, I depend upon them in innumerable ways on any given day. From bot managers that protect my website to chatbots, social bots, shopbots, web crawlers, and others, I wouldn’t even be able to get the answers I “need” from the Google Universe if they didn’t exist.

Does my world now sit on a bot fulcrum? Good bots assist my search needs, but bad bots hijack human credibility and try to steal my credit card info. Bots are a fact of life, a fiction story that has come true.

Once upon a time, “facts” seemed measurable and trustworthy. Robots were controllable. We knew where they began and we ended. Or where we began and they ended. Or… But now there are days when I answer the phone, ask a question online, or interact on social media, and I wonder—Who am I talking to? What am I talking to?

Is it any wonder that human beings stumble over who—and what—we are in response to this brave new world of ours?

I’ve never considered myself a mere human being existing in a natural world. Perhaps it is my Catholic upbringing which, though not particularly well-informed, nevertheless kept my head tilted in the up position—staring at the stars for a glimpse of the beyond, the life I could not see and didn’t expect to truly comprehend. I have always believed that I am part of a supernatural reality. My existence here on Earth feels more like a temporary exile than a home-sweet-home.

 When television shows offered science fiction stories like the Twilight Zone, I was okay with that. As far as I was concerned, life here has always been a twilight zone. We see but a veiled reality, flashes of truth, splintered fragments of each other’s wholeness.

Before you cart me off to the nearest Shady Side for the Mentally Unmoored, allow me to say that I am at peace with bots as well. I find it ironically amusing that we have created mechanical assistants who like angels and devils assist or haunt every step we take.

Truth, for me, is not found on Google. Certainty does not revolve around my limited human identity. I started writing about my human journey in a series of posts as my husband faced the end of his earthly existence, dying from Leukemia in his early 50s, and while I raised my young kids as a single mom. My Road Goes Ever On, Spiritual Being, Human Journey is not simply a plaintive catalog listing, “Boy, life sure is confusing as heck!” examples, but rather the tentative steps of a person attempting to find her identity, her purpose of existence, her value as a human being—and something more—in a world ever more dependent on unfeeling, non-human, mechanized systems.        

During the years I wrote those posts, I experienced a great deal of pain and joy, disaster and triumph, but the person that made me, me, remained much the same. Now, I see that as a good thing.

I have gotten to know myself on deeper levels and learned to trust my intuition and judgment. I am a better informed, perhaps a more completely formed, version of myself. And happily, I accept our bot-run reality as just another facet of our current twilight zone existence. If anything, it shows, ever more honestly, that there is more to life than facts, and fiction tells the truth in a world that we cannot fully see.

A. K. Frailey is the author of 15 books, a teacher for 35 years, and a homeschooling mother of 8.

Make the most of life’s journey. 

For books by A. K. Frailey check out her Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/A.-K.-Frailey/e/B006WQTQCE

Photo https://pixabay.com/photos/landscape-fantasy-fantasy-landscape-3128819/