Let’s Talk Love, Death, and Robots: Zima Blue

Hey y’all!! Today, we’re going to finish this iteration of Love, Death, and Robots episodes with my personal favorite, Zima Blue. This post is going to contain some spoilers, so I’m going to implore you, PLEASE WATCH THE EPISODE. It’s positively amazing, but you won’t get the same effect from a written summary. I’m still going to provide one, for reference’s sake, but seriously, watch the damn episode. I think it’s also the only episode with no violence or explicit themes too. So please pull up a chair and let’s talk Zima Blue.

Let’s run through this real quick

Renowned artist Zima Blue announces his final piece of art. And after numerous declined interview attempts, he personally invites reporter Claire Markham to interview him. On the way to the venue, Claire recounts the rumor of the origin of the enigmatic Zima Blue.

Zima, according to the rumor, originally started out doing portraits. But eventually he desired to find deeper meaning, and looked to gain his inspiration from elsewhere. So he looked to the cosmos, and began creating murals of space and all of it’s wonders.

Eventually, Zima revealed a mural that had a small difference.

There was a tiny blue square in the center

Over the next several decades, Zima unveiled more murals. Each had an abstract shape in the center, which progressively changed and took up more of the mural. The only thing that remained the same was the color of the shapes, which became known as Zima Blue.

Eventually, Zima entered what was known as his “Blue Period”, where he did incredibly large murals that were entirely blue. He painted cities, asteroid belts, and planets. But Zima was still dissatisfied.

He went to a planet called Kharkov IV, where he underwent illicit cybernetic modifications. He could see in any known spectrum, he didn’t need to breathe oxygen, and his skin was replaced with polymer that allowed him to withstand extreme environments. So he ventured forth to find truth in the cosmos.

In the present, Claire arrives at the venue, where Zima greets her and escorts her to the location of his final work of art

A swimming pool is under construction, and Zima says his search for truth has led him here. Claire doesn’t understand the importance of the pool, so Zima tells her a story.

Long ago, there was a brilliant young woman who was incredibly interested in robotics. And while she had many creations to do odd jobs around the house, she took a particular liking to the machine that cleaned her pool.

But she wanted it to do a better job, so she gave it a full color vision system and the ability to process that data, so that it could make it’s own decisions and develop new pool cleaning strategies. She continued to use it as a guinea pig for new hardware and software, and it progressively became more aware.

The woman eventually died, and the machine was passed from owner to owner, each adding more functionality and upgrades to the robot until it became Zima Blue. Claire is astounded and confused by the story, and Zima reveals that his name and the blue color actually come from the color of the pool tiles: the first thing he ever saw. And that the pool was the same pool that he spent so much time cleaning.

Later, Zima unveils the pool to art enthusiasts. He dives into the pool, and proceeds to shut down his high brain functions, and progressively unmakes himself. He leaves some of the visual and processing systems so he can appreciate his surroundings and reverts back to his original form.

Ok, I’m glad that’s done

I really hope that you watched the episode, ’cause it’s really intense to actually witness the whole thing, rather than just reading a summary. There are two main themes in this episode, and both are things that basically all people deal with. They’re pretty entangled together, so I’m going to talk about them in tandem. Those two themes are self-identity and purpose.

We talked a little bit about self-identity when we discussed the episode Shapeshifters

But this aspect of self-identity is different. In the other post, we talked about hiding who we are as people, being unable to live in our truth. This post dives more into uncovering our self-identity for ourselves, rather than simply being able to reveal it.

Zima has a really powerful quote in the show. After he recounts his true origin story, Claire still believes that he is a man and not a machine. Zima replies saying “Sometimes, it’s difficult even for me to understand what I’ve become. And harder still to remember what I once was“.

To me this quote is powerful because, he lost himself at some point, and it’s hard to remember how he got to his current state. And he can barely remember what he used to be like. And this is something that happens to people every day.

But the interesting thing to me is this: he didn’t actually lose himself. In fact, his true self was covered up, and his purpose was masked.

Let’s unwrap this

Zima was originally a pool cleaning robot. That was his job, his world, and his purpose. And while his creator used him to test things out, all of his upgrades were directed at strengthening him in said purpose. He went from tirelessly scrubbing the sides of the pool to cleaning the floors and the grooves between tiles. He grew in his truth.

But then, after his creator died, he received modifications and functions that were outside of his purpose. And they progressively covered up what he was until he became something completely different altogether, something that was almost unrecognizable to himself. And even worse, he could barely remember what he used to be like.

There’s a quote by Emily McDowell, and the gist of it is “finding yourself is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation,
a remembering who you were, before the world got its hands on you“. The world got its hands on Zima Blue, and turned him into what they required of him. So eventually, he went out searching for truth, HIS truth, and it led him back to the beginning.

Zima reverted back to his original form, excavating himself from everything that was added

“My search for truth has finished at last. I’m going home.” Those were Zima’s last words. He found that everything he sought, in his art, in the stars, in the universe, was all right there inside of him the whole time. He only needed to look inside and reflect to discover that what he needed and yearned for was within him.

Carl Jung once said that “who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens“. And that’s what happened to Zima. But there are some important takeaways for us in our lives.

The world impresses itself upon you

And when I say the world, I mean every single experience you have. Your parents, friends, favorite TV shows, etc. all influence you, whether you believe it or not. Everything you have ever experienced has led you to this present moment. But not everything is helpful, and not everything corresponds with you as an individual.

So, like Zima, you have to dig. Excavate yourself out from all of society’s pressures and the influences from people, and uncover who you really are. You have to find your identity.

And you can do that by looking inside and becoming more acquainted with yourself. Journaling and meditating are good starting points. Therapy is an excellent way to find out things that you may have never considered on your own. The main point is to do something. Life is too short to be someone that makes you unhappy. Life is too short to not be you. So find yourself and be yourself.

It is important to note that who you are is subject to change, because that’s the only constant in life. Who you are will grow and evolve over time. But it’s important to make sure that you’re growing in a way that aligns with what you want and believe, rather than what others might expect of you.

What about purpose?

Purpose is interesting because it’s one of those buzz words. People say “you’ve got to find your purpose”, but what does that actually mean? There’s a Japanese philosophy called ikigai (“reason for being”) that exemplifies that for me. It’s basically that the recipe for happiness is at the center of four circles: what the world needs, what you’re good at, what you can be paid for, and what you love. Ikigai, to me, aligns with purpose.

Discovering that purpose can be hard though. There are many people who go their entire lives without finding something that fulfills all of that criteria. Some people don’t even try.

But ironically, trying is how you do it. Very few of us are lucky enough to find out our purpose early on. So that means we have to go out and try and experience new things. We have to expose ourselves to the unknown, because only in that realm of uncertainty can we find our purpose.

And it might not necessarily mean that we find it in the unknown, but that we realize we already have our purpose. That’s a tough one, so let me elaborate.

In Zima’s case, he already had his purpose from the get go. But in conjunction with his identity, it was covered up by the modifications and changes imposed upon him. Only through his search for truth in the unknown did he discover that he already had what he was searching for. His identity and purpose were intertwined.

The implication is that as identity shifts, your purpose could shift as well

I had a conversation with one of the wisest men I know this past weekend. I mentioned finding a career that I can do for the rest of my life, and he said “it doesn’t have to be for the rest of your life. People change careers all the time. I myself have done that”. Which made me realize that for those who find ikigai in their careers, the reason will change as the person changes, leading to a change in occupation.

Not only that, an individual might have more than one purpose, or satisfy a singular purpose in multiple ways. Life is variable, and each person has a different journey to go on. But if you don’t already know where you stand in that regard, you have to get up and start searching.

People will gravitate to you on your quest, for a variety of reasons. Claire was fascinated with Zima, even though she really wasn’t interested in art. I find that folks are attracted to authenticity, and to someone who speaks a truth that they resonate with. But that tends to only happen with those that have found their purpose or are actively looking for it.

The point?

The point is this: look inward to find your identity, and look outward for your purpose. Take some time to search yourself for who you really are, if you don’t already know. You’ll probably find that self buried under years of experiences. Life’s too short to be unhappy. Find yourself, find your ikigai, and live in you truth.

I want to thank y’all for talking humans with me today. If you want to continue the conversation, please leave a comment, drop a line via the Contact Me page, or hit me up on Instagram @ryokeniii. If you got something out of the post, please subscribe to the mailing list! And if you feel like someone can get something out of it, please share!! As always, take some time to talk humans with someone this week. Until next time, out!