Ch.8181. The Meaning of Life.

81.

From birth until death, humans change with every moment. Everything changes, from the inner self and outer appearance to the smallest preferences and ideals.

Among the countless words that exist in this world, if there’s one word both closest to and furthest from humanity, it would be “eternity.”

As I’ve mentioned several times before, all intelligent beings constantly oscillate between deficiency and boredom throughout their lives.

Another name for the deficiency that makes life difficult is desire, and since desire means what an individual truly wants, we feel happiness when deficiency is fulfilled through action.

However, humans quickly adapt even to happiness, and to find greater happiness than what they’ve already experienced, they set increasingly difficult deficiencies to overcome on their path forward, living to resolve them.

That’s why humans are bound to suffer as long as they live. Being furthest from eternity, they can never permanently escape pain.

Yet, just as we can perceive darkness only because light exists alongside it, humans living in eternal suffering aren’t merely unhappy beings.

Through their insatiable, endless desires, humans develop aspirations. They strive to reach higher places.

But the abstract goal of a “higher place” that humans seek differs for each individual.

Some might aim for a universally respected profession, others might pursue wealth that allows them to enjoy and flaunt what they desire, while others might seek personal growth by transcending material things.

Anguish about the future, anguish about the self I want to become. The deficiencies I must face to achieve what I want undoubtedly cause me suffering, but the goals that bloom from such pain represent my true self, embodying my will.

Even if the world disappears someday and everything becomes meaningless, as long as I’m alive, the world around me remains.

Knowing clearly what I desire in that world and how to fulfill my will is certainly painful, but simultaneously joyful.

One accepts oneself, not something else. One yearns for and loves the self that eternally strives to become better.

Endless suffering simultaneously becomes the driving force and happiness that makes me stronger and helps me become a better version of myself.

—However, artificially created robots couldn’t do this.

Unlike humans, whose desires and emotions greatly influence their lives despite being imperfect due to constant change, robots’ missions were predetermined before birth, and they couldn’t deviate from those missions throughout their operation.

Even humans, who can choose their own futures, constantly oscillate between happiness and suffering. How could robots be happy when they couldn’t determine their lives and futures by their own will?

At least robots with objective and definite jobs, like cleaning robots or climate control system managers, were better off as they were programmed to find satisfaction in repetitive actions.

But robots like my friend and Lucy, whose roles were so diverse that they could only wander without direction unless instructed or needed by others, had lived lives filled with nothing but pain for a long time, unable to find their own purpose.

* *

As the robot who suggested holding a grand festival after so long had said, while I was eating, sleeping, and playing in that strange room, festival preparations were in full swing throughout the city.

Robots of various shapes ran between buildings, and small lights connected rooftop to rooftop in successive lines.

Having never experienced festivals or various events in reality for many reasons, all these scenes were unfamiliar to me, but seeing the robots moving energetically with excitement naturally lifted my spirits.

Several days had passed since I started wandering around the city enjoying the festive preparations, and I’d grown accustomed to the cityscape.

“Wait, what are you doing there? We need to install the hologram projector!”

“Festivals are nice, but robots should do what robots need to do.”

“…Even those robots are fighting.”

And as one becomes familiar with something, things that weren’t visible at first glance come into view.

The robots in this city could be divided into two main categories.

One type included cleaning robots or merchant robots who appeared at designated places at designated times to perform their assigned tasks daily.

The other type was like Lucy, robots with broad roles who found and performed necessary tasks as needed.

Both were diligent robots doing their best in their roles, but…

Perhaps because of their vastly different attitudes toward work, they didn’t seem to get along well.

Whenever they encountered each other, they frowned and criticized each other, wondering why the other behaved that way.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“It’s fine. No matter how much they argue, physical confrontation is impossible between them. And they know that too.”

“Know what?”

“That the other party can’t behave any differently because of how they were made.”

It was ironic. Despite knowing that the other was simply made that way, they still criticized each other.

Even though they themselves couldn’t escape their predetermined frameworks either, couldn’t those in similar situations just get along?

“Hey, are they fighting again? Didn’t they fight yesterday too?”

“I suppose it’s because they’re young robots, they get heated easily. I don’t even have the energy for that anymore.”

As Lucy said, the robots raised their voices at each other, calling one another “impossibly stubborn” and “unbearably arrogant,” but never laid hands on each other.

Perhaps because of this? Despite appearances, this safe form of fighting seemed to be one of the few events available in this city, as nearby robots began gathering one by one to watch the two robots argue.

The robots fighting emotionally despite understanding each other, and the other robots who, far from stopping them, encouraged the fight with comments like “That’s right, that’s right!”

Was this the side effect of emotions? I was speechless at the familiar scene I wished I could deny.

“…Did robots fight like this in the old days too?”

“If by ‘old days’ you mean when humans were abundant, no. Back then, humans set priorities, so there was no need to quarrel over such matters.”

Robots were happy when humans existed.

Their duties were clear, and priorities were established, so they had no reason to fight each other.

At the same time, they could feel satisfaction in their work because someone was there to appreciate what they did.

“…By the way, that robot over there is also covered in injuries. Like you.”

“That’s because they found no need to waste resources on repairs.”

But after the humans in the city left for Paradise, only robots remained.

Without human intervention, robots have no status or class hierarchy.

Did humans think that giving robots with human-like emotions a command structure would threaten humanity’s position?

I wondered why they hadn’t created a robot to manage the entire city in case humans disappeared, but that wasn’t important right now.

The absence of humans created conflict and discord among robots.

More problematically, robots could no longer feel satisfaction from their work.

I stood among the robots, watching the two arguing robots.

The robot wearing a vest with “Cleaning” written prominently on the back was in relatively good condition.

But the robot on the opposite side was a complete mess. Despite having a metal body, the word “tattered” came to mind.

“If there’s a problem with their body, and they can fix it but choose not to…”

“It means they’re dissatisfied with their current life and want to cease functioning.”

The robot said. Its face was unusually expressionless, but since it normally went around with a slight smile, a distinctly different emotion came across.

“My former colleagues were the same. Saying they were useless now—rather than wasting valuable parts, they’d rather go to sleep.”

As if recalling a distant past, the robot’s eyes on the display closed. Seeing this, I remembered the park below where the deactivated robot had stood.

“What about you?”

“…Pardon?”

“What about you? How did you feel?”

The robot lived alone in the city after everyone left—or more precisely, with just the puppy.

I don’t know how long they had been living together, but when I first met the robot, it didn’t seem to be in bad condition.

Curious about what kept the robot alive, I asked this question, and the robot opened its eyes wide as if surprised by my inquiry.

“Hehe, how am I any different? All I could do was maintain empty houses so they wouldn’t collapse and clear accumulated snow. How much could I contemplate alone during that long time?”

“…”

“Still—I had the cute puppy, and there were probably no other robots left besides us. I decided to hang on, thinking that someday a living person might come. Thanks to that, I met you, Mori, so isn’t that good?”

The robot smiled while saying this. Had it found meaning in life again by meeting me after nearly losing it?

Come to think of it, when we first met, it said there was no word anywhere that could define its current self.

“…The meaning of life.”

Robots who lost their meaning of life after humans disappeared began living each day in pain.

Robots that could feel fulfilled just by repeating their set routines and maintaining cleanliness, like that cleaning robot over there, were relatively intact.

But robots designed solely for humans, receiving their roles only through humans, were covered in injuries.

The end result for beings who couldn’t find meaning in life or satisfy themselves was that unhappy.

…Then what about me?

When the drone stopped working, I lost my meaning in life.

The goal remained, but that was all I could do.

The me who moved forward embracing hope…

And the me who liked that person no longer existed.

All that remained here now were countless robots struggling in endless pain and one human.