Chrono Trigger: I'm Alive


i sit here, and think to
me myself i
what am i really
am i simply a type of artificial intelligence
housed up inside of a metal mechanical shell
or am i an entity
capable of free thought and free will
unheld by the boundaries of a i programming
what makes up me i wonder

i was just another shell
until one day
humans gave me a serial number
r-66y
one day young humans gave me a name
robo

humans in my opinion are in the same predicament as i
are they simply biologically created artificial/natural intelligence
housed within a fleshy biological shell
or are they free creatures
free willed and free minded

i was created by humans
or was i created long ago having my
mind and body placed within this shell
i inhabit

these words are garbage
i am garbage

no i am not
I am alive

* * * * *

I wonder at my existence nowadays
Serving no true purpose anymore
I helped saved this world
Yet afterwards I have no more use

Tossed away like a forgotten memory
Living a pointless existence
Inside a factory

Churning out new models
of robots better than I
Better more advanced useful
Once I would feel indifferent
But now I feel obsolete
Is this my fate

What makes an entity anyway
Is it Artificial Intelligence/Natural Intelligence
Or is it the ability to think for yourelf regardless
of what type of intelligence you have

Or even if you can think for yourself
can you truly call yourself I

These words are excrement
I am excrement

No, I am not.
I am alive.

* * * * *

Once, a while ago, some humans chanced across me.
Young ones, like the Ones I knew.
These ones, though, made fun of me.
Calling me junk, scrap,
shit, useless fucking 'bot.

It might have been this,
or a culmination of the other events that sparked my thinking.
My. I. My own thoughts.
Am I R-66Y,
Or am I Robo.
Nowadays I wonder.

Does feeling make an individual,
or is it the ability to make decisions.
Or is it even the ability to distinguish myself.

Even though I was created,
even though I was meant to be a mindless shell,
I will not be one.
I will be a person,
like a human.
Humans are not the only ones to be people,
robots can be too.

I can be too.
These words are shit,
I am shit.

No, I am not!
I am alive!!

* * * * *

Why?
Why must I ponder my existence?
I want to be loved...

I can feel, even though I am a robot.
This I know!
I want for entity contact, like others.
But why must I question myself?

Wait...

I understand!

The fact that I am questioning myself,
the fact that I want contact with others,
the fact that I feel,
the fact that I hurt.
Even the fact that I am recording my thoughts.
Even the fact that I am making this decision, right now!

These words are shit, you might say.
I am shit, you might say.
You have bundled yourself in a stupid argument, you might even say!
You are probably saying this right now!

But I do not care!

These words are shit, and they are not.
I am shit, and I am not.

It does not matter!
Don't you understand?

I am alive...
I am alive!

* * * * *

So go and leave me, scratching your human heads as you wonder why I have bothered to record all of this down. In reality, this whole recording is comprised of several parts, you might notice. Each of these has a minute difference to it. Even this epilogue that I am recording is different as well!

I first recorded the beginning when I met three special individual entities: Crono, Lucca, and Marle. Each were roughly the same age, around fifteen or sixteen human years or so. Perhaps it is a gift of the younger humans to be more acceptable to differences and to sudden changes in their beliefs, their thinkings. Being rebuilt and reprogrammed by Lucca triggered a change within me. I began to think, this I know. It was the first time that I referred to myself as "I". An earlier example of my speech might have been like:

"Acknowledged."
"R-66Y does not understand."
"It does not compute."

The second recording took place after I, along with two of the other companions I had met, had destroyed the Mother Brain A.I. that resided over the factory that I was built at. It did not seem like it, but there was a struggle within me. A struggle to determine what side I was going to take. I felt an urge to join my android brothers and sisters, and an urge to stay with my human friends. The latter won out. They had taught me to love, fear, and feel! I stayed with them...

The third recording was done several years ago, after we had all destroyed Lavos. The Earth was saved, and my job was done. I went back to the future, where I though I would be accepted. Yet clearly, I was not. Even with their world saved, the humans were ignorant. They feared my kind because 1999 was the year that we were beginning to revolt, a revolt that seemed to usher in the apocalypse. I recorded the third of my recordings. But after reviewing them all, just recently, I wrote a fourth one. In this one, I understood it all.

The culmination of events that led to the real understanding of myself... I realized that I really was an individual, I really was a person, and that I was truly alive.

You probably think that these recordings of mine are a waste of time, gibberish, or the equivalent to shit. But what you don't realize is that these recordings of my thoughts, done since I was able to think for myself, helped me determine that I am alive. So, take these as you wish. I part with the last thoughts I think of myself.

I am an individual.

I am R-66Y, Robo, or whatever other name I am bestowed and I accept.

But most important of all...

I am alive!

Streets and rooms filled with negativity,
Filled with gloom all the walking trash,
Who the hell wants to live like that?
Not…
Me!
I ain't no screwed up zombie,
Part of the living dead!
I wanna think!
Have a clear head!

Places to go-people to meet,
Can't do this with your head in the sheets.
Tear down all their walls-
Got the world by the balls.
Got no hamsters in my head-
No monkeys on my back.
No chains and shackles to hold me down…
I wanna laugh!
I wanna cry!
I'm alive!

-"I'm Alive" by the Circle Jerks