Love Conquers All

I've just seen a wonderful little movie which I want to recommend to you. It's called Wall-E from Pixar. You've probably heard of it and you may have already seen it, particularly if you have children. It's a beautiful tale, full of love and hope. If you haven't seen it, check it out, better yet see it with someone you really care about and hold hands throughout - it's that kind of movie.

I went to see it because I'm always curious about how robots are portrayed in film. Robotics was one of my early loves and I studied machine learning for quite a few years from the cognitive and philosophical side. Eventually I drifted from the esoteric into what we call wetware, trying to derive models of learning by observing and experimenting with actual biological systems. However I digress...

This movie is a little bit about robots, they are the main characters after all, and more about relationships. Wall-E falls in love with another robot who has trouble loving him back. It not that she can't, it's just that she's got other things on her mind. As in many classic fairy tales, our hero strives and strives to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to prove his love and win her heart. There's no grandstanding on his part, no dragons being slain, no boasts about his abilities or accomplishments; he's just patient with her, staying by her side through many difficult moments. To me this is love; it's saying ok I care about you though I may not completely understand you and I'm here when you're ready, for whatever. Wall-E's big dream was to hold hands with her. I'm down with that - simple touch means so much.

There's not really a whole lot more to true love; it's just someone saying I accept you as you are and I want to be with you and only you and then meaning it throughout their being. And you can't tell if someone loves you from a distance, it has to be up close and messy. Love is about taking chances, which is a wonderful segue into the second type of relationship portrayed in this movie.

The humans in Wall-E's world have lost their ability to face risks. They live in a sheltered environment protected from needing or wanting anything; it's all delivered to them by faithful robotic servants. This retreat from actually living their lives fully to just sitting around and letting circumstance dictate what they should and shouldn't feel has left them satisfied yet clueless and not truly happy. They don't realize what they're missing. That's the second lesson here - it's the struggle, the striving, the overcoming of fear and the joy that comes from dancing in the face of doubt that ultimately defines how much we are alive in this world. If we don't fully live, scary as that may be, then how can we ever really love, and isn't love what we came here for?