Are You a Cyborg?- Spoken Word from Aileen K on Vimeo.
Text (This is what I was supposed to say):
Let me ask you a question.
Are you a cyborg?
I mean,
the obvious answer is no.
Being all flesh and bone,
Prone to illness and disease.
Cyborgs are like robots,
Using grease and grime,
Oil as dark as obsidian.
Their emotions not displayed,
Their humanity is almost erased.
They have digital numbers flowing through their veins-
How long until our society can progress
so we can become cyborgs?
Is it when we fail to compute
the increase in emotional instability?
Is it when we must take down the
half lives of the people that remain with brute force?
Or is it when we stop
Tearing down forests to grow avocados-
because we don’t need them anymore.
Is it today?
I mean when paper is slowly dying.
Right next to the trees.
When your messages to me
come in digitally.
Is that what it takes?
To try to confront a generation
that is being blamed for the mistake?
For links to link together into
chains.
Chains that imprison me from-
Reality.
I mean,
I’m sorry I don’t have a phone,
I’m sorry for taking you back to 1972 because
I can only communicate by email-
Or if you want to telephone my home phone that’s fine to.
When will your venom take me?
Destroy me?
Digitalize me?
Will I have digital numbers flowing through my veins?
What does it take to be a cyborg?
Is it as simple as embedding an SD card into my wrist?
Or do I have to lose my human decisions and emotions?
Sometimes I think that we can all be cyborgs,
We believe in what we see.
Whatever they tell us on the internet-
Whatever they embed into our train of thought-
Before the train gets derailed
Stolen-
Hacked.
Maybe in the future,
the world will no longer pixelate before me.
Maybe we could get glasses in high resolution,
Maybe even in 10k.
Will we be cyborgs by then?
I could be forced to pump out
the never ending red ink
that flows inside of me.
What enables me to write.
Only to choke down on the silicon green
of your digital world.
I do not understand the words you type.
I do not understand the words you say.
They all just sound the same.
The world that we no longer pity ourselves upon,
as we would have everything we need.
Maybe I’ll realize when my tears
Are as cold as the metal that engulfs me.
Digitalize me.
Will I be a cyborg then?
Are we soon going to be
empty packages of flesh?
The brain being replaced by a computer.
Processing thoughts faster than electricity.
No immediate thought.
Calculation.
No emotions to get in our way.
No hunger.
No poverty.
No content.
Are you a cyborg?
Because I have digital numbers flowing through my veins.
Two things I did well:
I think that in my spoken word this year, I was able to get the right amount of time in. Usually i’m just trying to make it past the minimum time. But, this year I was able to come up with so many ideas, I had to try to fit them into the the amount of time that I was given. I also think that I’ve gotten better at presenting in front of others and not being as nervous and anxious as I usually was. I have learned how to cope with my nervousness and to continue on with my presentation without thinking about what other people are thinking about me.
Two thinks to improve:
For next year, I want to be able to have a more secure topic. This year, I had many topics and I kind of shoved them all into one spoken word. It worked out, but for next year, I want to have more concrete ideas in my writing process. Be able to know what I’m doing and not mash things together and hope that it sounds good. I also still want to improve my speech when I present before others. I know that I have progressed already compared to last year, but I think that I want to be able to reach a stage to when I am able to present and be confident and comfortable with what I presenting.