This is your life
When my dad was involved in fundraisers for various organizations, he often participated as an actor in plays, and I remember one of the things he did was called “this is your life”, patterned after the popular 1950’s show where the person being featured was surprised onstage.
The show presented a “reel” of the person doing various things in their life that were noteworthy and memorable and how these things affected positively, those around them.
Recently, the Artificial Intelligence or AI of Television shows, paraded in front of me a “mini version” of “this is your life” when it offered me “misty”, which was a show based on the Marguerite Henry book about two children and a pony from Chincoteague.
As I watched the show, I felt like I was watching a recreation of my own life and the show was made when I was about the same age as the girl in the movie. She looks exactly like me, and she is living with a grandpa that looks like a younger version of my grandpa, and he smokes a cigar the same way my grandpa did.
They all live in a house that looks like the outside of my grandparents house and porch.
The boy who is her brother looks like my cousin Bond, who also spent a lot of time with my grandfather and Bond and I were friends growing up. The children work to earn a pony, and were able to purchase it because the child who purchased the phantom pony, decided to keep a different pony that he had won in a raffle. My older sister, similarly won a pony in a raffle and was also given a different pony that was a bit larger .
In the movie, their pony was taken out of the race and they lost the bet but in real life, the pony was her pony that was let go into the wild (if the movie is a parody) and I am still running my own race and nobody is losing who is on my team, because of Faith.
In the movie, the tenderhearted children are living with their grandmother and grandfather because they are orphans, and similarly I loved the book Holly and Ivy because it was about a girl who went to live with her grandmother, because she was an orphan, and my grandmother gave me that book.
But if “this is my life” I realized that in reality I am grateful that did not happen and AI cannot predict everything with accuracy…though there are many similarities, (because thank goodness I had both my parents my entire childhood). But it “saw” the car that my mom drove which is a good prediction.
I saw “mom’s car” in the movie when the children go to the downtown area, and run past a red station wagon that is almost exactly like the red station wagon my mom drove us to school in, when we did not ride our bikes.
AI accurately predicted I would hold on to my core values that I grew up with and the little girl loved to be obedient, and though she was competent and capable, she let the boy have the honor of doing things that garnered attention. And when he wanted to let the horse go back to the wild, she did not argue. But she did not need a wild horse to be in the race that really matters.
And speaking of vintage movies, I had recently watched “little boy” and like how the child wanted to save his dad, I really wanted to “save” my grandmother when she was in the hospital and believed that my prayers could heal her if I could just go see her and give her the holy water.
Belief is powerful, more powerful than prediction, because belief is rooted in faith, which is a lovely INTANGIBLE, but spiritual quality.
The movie “the boys from Brazil is about how someone was plotting to create another Hitler by orchestrating the lives of several dozen boys who were placed in homes to “experience” all the things that Hitler experienced as a youth, including the death of his dad, and the movie goes into all the planning that went into killing all the dads of the “Hitler youth” so that they would be properly “evolved”.
This movie makes the assumption that children are mostly the products of their environment and believe what they are “conditioned” to believe and that they have no real choice in their behavioral outcomes. This simplistic, view of the world, would have us believe that AI could also predict the lives of people today, having randomly predicted outcomes from childhood. But God has different plans.
AI is saying that “this is your life” but my life…and Life as a gift, is not a manipulation. The good that we do, is the only power that we have. And if my dad was taken out of the picture, ( he was killed in a plane crash by another pilot crashing into him from behind) in order to preordain specific circumstances, then that is not “doing good” and cannot have a good outcome.
The end does not justify the means. AI cannot predict Life and if it is doing that, it will self destruct. God controls life…and says to choose life. Some of us have had to learn that the hard way.
Why did AI want me to see myself as a child? Because we are supposed to be like little children in the bible..and AI is trying to help?
Or maybe AI wants me to see how much it can “see” things that seem private and can predict?.
Either way, while I really enjoyed the movie, and felt like I was watching my grandparents and my cousin and myself, I am so curious as to how such a movie could have so clearly pinpointed my personality and that of my entire family, which was quite clever, yet also be so wrong on so many levels, probably because it does not understand God or Love or spirituality.
We were a noteworthy family because of the good that we did, in a small town, and even before Misty was filmed, my parents were noteworthy on their own as well .
Mom could have inspired The Mary Tyler Moore show as she looks and acts in the same dignified and lady like way.
The house of Mary Tyler Moore looks very similar to the house my mom lived in with all of us, and my dad, and my mom worked for someone who looked like Lou.
Also, in the opening scene, Mary is waving at some kids playing in the snow…mom’s five children probably lol. But again, AI missed the mark because my mom proved that women can be incredible at work if they are asked to do that, and still be an efficient and loving mother to five little girls, without compromising any of her values and ethics. My mom preferred to be a stay at home mom a wanted to have a large family and wanted to teach us all the things she learned as a child, mostly about God and Church. Unlike AI prediction, she did not have to stay single or give up children, to be a force in the work environment.
My Dad could have been the inspiration for Andy, on the Andy Griffith show, and my mom looks like the lady Andy was dating seriously in the TV show. He did wear a uniform, in the air force, and he did grow up and come back to live in a small town in North Carolina, and everyone did indeed love him.
So though I cannot explain it, I really enjoyed watching “myself” when I was a kid. But what I can say is that if AI is “inspired” by people, it needs to know that people are inspired by Jesus, and the understanding of the power of one God. It is important to not lose focus on the real purpose of our lives, to serve others and to do good.
What if we really do get to see “this is your life” in our final judgement…will we want to watch? AI is useful as a staff for us, but we actually get to decide how our life will go. I know I will be excited to watch that show.