compliance

Isn't this sad: I'm sitting in front of the television set on a saturday afternoon, watching a film made for young teenagers, and getting all misty eyed. What film you ask? It's called “The flight of the navigator” and it's about this twelve year old boy who gets to be abducted by aliens without his knowledge, only to become aware of it when the robotic spacecraft that took him, needs his help to get home again. So nothing new there. No big movie stars in it either. No film score that blows you away. Best they could do is “Get around” from the Beach Boys. Which is not bad at all, but not what I want to talk about. It's the word “compliance”.

The trimaxian spacecraft robot treats the twelve year old kid as “the navigator”, meaning the one in command of the ship. Whenever the boy tells it to do something, it replies......yes, that's it: “Compliance”. And than does literally what the boy sad. Are you getting it?

I love this movie. It takes quite a while before you get to the spacecraft bit. When you haven't seen this film before, you need that part to be able to follow the story further on. When you already know the whos and whys, the non-spacecraft part is less interesting. To me, anyway.

So what is it that gets me misty eyed whenever Max, short for trimaxian spacecraft robot, says “compliance” in a tone of voice that is always completely stressless and spoken like there isn't a care in the world. Like: if that is what you want, that is exactly what you get, without any argument.

I don't know how easy it is for non autistic people to understand the meaning and feeling behind this, but it is what heaven would be like. You say something, and other than normal life which is filled with people arguing, lying, haggling,stalling and or doing stuff that in their words is what you asked for but in reality is still miles away from it, you just get exactly what you said. No argument whatsoever. That never happens. But it is heaven to an austistic person. And because it is, and because it is so very rare in real life, I just can't help but cry for joy just to see it portrayed in fiction. At least some people still believe in it, I think when watching that. Maybe, just maybe I'll be so lucky as to encounter such a person (I honestly think I'll never encounter robots like Max) at some point in my life and be able to enjoy the moment. Without thinking it'll only be like all the ohter times, when all I get is shit.