Have you seen the film The Wild Robot? I knew nothing about it, except that it was supposed to be good, and that it was something my kid would watch with me, instead of another episode of “LEGO Ninjago: Dragon’s Rising!” (no shade, mad respect). I’m here to tell you that not only was it was an excellent movie (I laughed, I cried), but a really important one for you to watch right now.
AI will tell you that this film is about “the power of kindness,” which is not wrong, but neither is it fully right. Of the many themes expressed in the film (kindness, otherness, motherhood) its message is far deeper:
you are not a cog in the machine, you are here to feel.
Here are the broad strokes: The setting is sometime in the not-so-distant-future (society has a Jetson’s-era aesthetic, and the Golden Gate Bridge is underwater). Rozzum 7134 is a robot marooned on an Island. Straight out of the packaging her first words are, “a Rozzum always completes its task. Just ask!” As the island is uninhabited by humans, she has a difficult time finding anyone to give her a task (though she has a built-in feature offering her services for “10% off when you present this sticker).
So she “activates learning mode,” sits still and observes the world around her for an entire season, learning the language of the creatures around her and how to mimic their movements (“Rozzums are programmed for instant physical mimicry!”) Finally, she finds herself tasked with raising a gosling so that he can “eat, swim and fly by fall.” Since her programming tells her that there’s no task she can’t accomplish, she sets to it. (The film got a laugh out of me when Roz refers to raising a child as "integrated multiphase task accomplishment.”)
What follows is a sweet, funny and visually engaging story about parenthood (motherhood specifically). As “Roz” (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) comes to understand that raising this gosling is in fact, her task she objects: “I do not have the programming to be a mother,” to which a pup-covered opossum (voiced by Catherine O’Hara), responds, “No one does. We just make it up.” Roz and the gosling, who she names Brightbill, go on to figure out how to co-exist. Roz complains that “[he] makes simple tasks more complicated or impossible,” and yet we see her begin to go against her efficiency programming when she slows down in order to let Brightbill participate in the task at hand.
The role of the Greek Chorus (i.e. the voice of society) is filled by a fox named Frik (voiced by Pedro Pascal). From him, we hear that “kindness is not a survival skill.” This is what AI is referring to when it says that the film is about kindness - Roz goes on to show that without kindness, survival for these island creatures is not a given.
As the plot thickens, Roz gets captured by her creators, a mega powerful corporation, Universal Dynamics,1 that wants to mine her memory banks for data. The bot that is sent to retrieve her cheerily says, “you are defective. you are in the wrong place. you’ve become the wrong thing. You must return to factory!” Roz has over-ridden her programming, and her creators want her back to see how she did it. So they can make more money.
Here’s what makes you (and me) like this robot:
We are all programmed to believe that our purpose is to fulfill tasks and be productive. More specifically: productivity that results in financial gain.
Parenting re-wires the brain. I have an ADHD brain, and after 43 years with it, I’ve figured out how it works and what it needs, and I’m reasonably equipped to provide it. Except when I’m parenting. The overwhelming amount of information and sensory input that happens when I’m out in the world with my child often makes me feel like I am short-circuiting. (I nearly left the grocery store without paying yesterday and I thought my car had been stolen a few weeks ago because it wasn’t where I thought I’d parked it) Parenting breaks the brain, but it also puts us right in touch with our feelings.
Big Capitalism (and its stooges, patriarch & white supremacy) don’t want you to feel your feelings. To override your programming. They want you to say busy and so you are rewarded for being productive. Why? Because when we keep busy, we stay complacent (“this is just the way things are,”) and compliant (“when I have the new xyz then I will feel complete.”)
But our emotional state doesn’t affect only us, it impacts those around us.
“Most emotional bodies are a little bit dis-regulated, to say the least,” says Dr. Suzy Miller on episode 4 of Telepathy Tapes: Talk Tracks (which is a mind-blowing podcast that will change the way you see human existence forever). So our upset affects the way we treat those around us, and then their upset affects those around them, and so on and so forth. If we all stay angry/mad/sad we spread it, like a virus. And if we’ve learned anything in recent years, its that viruses spread wether we like it or not. “We’re all attuned to reading e/o feelings,” says the podcast’s host, Ky Dickens, “if we can clean up our own energy it will effect everyone around us.”
You might be wondering, “what does it even mean to ‘feel your feelings?’” Here’s what I, a professional coach, counselor and clergy person have learned about it: to feel your feelings you must first know them, and in order to know them you must stop doing and instead try be-ing. Mindfulness meditation is how I found my way into this practice, personally, but there are certainly others.
This form of meditation is not about clearing the mind (I don’t know how that happens, at least it’s never happened for me), it is about being mind-full of what is happening in the mind. For instance, you may sit in silence for a single minute and be inundated with information from your brain: "you’ve got to reply to that email. don’t forget to pick up TP on the way home. pay the kid’s orthodontist. feel guilty about that exchange you had with your partner. check in on the parents…”
Our brain boxes have a LOT to say, and it reflects the programming that it’s received. In order to override that programming, we have to feel. We have to be uncomfortable. We have to cry. We have to scream. We have to love.
Roz describes this as, “processing that used to happen here <gestures to head> is coming more from here <gestures to heart>.” Underneath all of the logic and reason and data there is a feeling body that senses the world around you. Those senses tell you how you ought to feel, or react to any given situation. You are hardwired, actually, to be wild.
Earlier, I said this was a film about motherhood specifically, and while I buck gender norms, I can’t deny that mothers are programmed by society to be these task-accomplishing robots more than just about anyone else. If you are a woman in 21st century America you are only worth as much as your ability to complete the myriad tasks associated with parenting, working, and running a home (oh, and being physically attractive to the male gaze). No matter your gender, ours is a culture that says you’re only worth what you can put in the bank. What a bunch of bunk.
Here, dear Wild Robot, is your task, should you choose to accept it:
Stop trying to be everything to everyone.
Sit your butt down, close your mouth, and learn about the people & creatures around you.
Before asking yourself what to do with this new information, first ask yourself how you feel about it. And then feel that feeling. (Don’t worry, the average emotion passes in about 90 seconds)
Then and only then do you assess what actions need to be taken, if any.
You are not a robot. I am not a robot. But we have both been programmed by societal and cultural expectations to fulfill our roles and play our parts and to be useful accordingly. You are more than that. I am more than that. And what a wild, beautiful thing that is.
p.s. Let’s be Wild Robots together! Book your free session to see how you can begin to override your programming.
“Universal Dynamics! Our communities circle the globe welcoming all people who dream of a preplanned life where every need has been anticipated not detail overlooked. Could this world get any better? It has!” Sounds… eerily familiar.