Notes on "Maya": Not too late to read!
Commentary on my debut futuristic human story "Maya" (NO SPOILERS!)
Notes on "Maya"
Dear Readers: I recently published and serialized a sci-fi/futuristic story “Maya”. Both firsts for me: a longish, short story in the sci-fi genre, and serialized fiction on my substack.
Read it here:
As part of this experiment I wanted of offer some notes about the story for those who read it, AND for exhorting those of you who have not yet done so, to join in!
You can read or listen to these notes. NO SPOILERS!
“Maya” paints a futuristic, dystopian world in which a promising young man, Raman meets a young woman named Maya. Note that above all, this is a human story with a futuristic, dystopian backdrop. The two fall in love, get married, and have a beautiful life together. Until…well… a lot happens!
What’s “real” got to do with it?
The most important theme in “Maya” is the love story.
Closely interlinked with that is the notion of “real” and why we care in matters of love. Even more relevant given the rapid progress of AI, which is now all the chatter everywhere. I’m no AI-alarmist, nor maximalist for that matter, fully recognizing that one there’s no stopping this train AND two that even (the technology of) fire came with its risks, so buyer beware! But AI does pose some interesting human questions such as: what’s real? Or perhaps who's real? and does it even matter?
For example, in the not too distant future, we could elect to have perfectly compatible companions, friends, lovers, even spouses who meet our every ostensible need—with AI robots. And how would we feel about that?
Let’s lower the stakes a bit. What if we loved a dog very much, and it died at some point, and we missed it terribly. And someone suggested we get the exact same dog, replicating its exact behaviors, mimicking everything our beloved old doggie did, including its every idiosyncrasy—via an AI robot. What would we do? Would we opt for that? Could we love it just the same?
I posit that we humans have a need to believe that those we love are real, as in fully, authentically themselves, originally human or dog. It's just not good enough that the person, or dog, or whatever the entity is, completely mimics a real one. Our need to know that the one we love is real is much bigger; it’s a thing of the spirit and missing a “soul” or spirit” or whatever you want to call it, offends our very ability to love. I believe there’s no getting away from this ineffable need.
First, get the family!
Another major theme in “Maya”, related to the need for “real”, has to do with family. I wanted to show how a government, or an all powerful ruling entity, with ulterior motives would choose to strategically attack family bonds. It’s not that far-fetched either. Communists, Nazis, etc. all went after families first. They recruited and leveraged youth, radicalizing even young children to speak and act against their own families, spy on them, denounce them, etc.
Specifically the idea for the KNOT program in the story came from an article1 I read a few years ago about the persecuted minority of Uyghurs in China. These people are ethnically distinct from the Han Chinese majority. I read that Uyghur men were being sent away to concentration or work camps, and the government was inserting Han Chinese men into their families as replacements, as a way of assimilating and integrating the Uyghurs into the broader Han population. And slowly dissipating the unique Uyghur ethnic identity. That's how I came up with the idea for the program.
The Altar of Productivity
And finally, a theme that a couple of the readers picked up on: Our obsession with productivity. This theme plays out as government programming aka “reengineering” or “re-education”, as fine communists have always called it, that forms the backdrop of this story.
Here various programs are run by the government to improve human productivity and help citizens achieve their highest potential; as always in the name of the “good of the people”. Especially relevant in this world where population is declining precipitously. Citizens don't question the degree of sacrifice being asked of them in return for reaching their productivity potentials.
There’s clearly a lot of pressure in modern life to be productive at all costs. While some of this orientation is good, noble even, and has led to incredible progress and betterment of our lives, it cannot be the only altar we worship at. A lot of this pressure is self-imposed because we are mimetic creatures, and when we live in a competitive society that’s driven by material success and achievement, we don’t remain immune to that.
The danger comes when we forget we’re also creatures of love and spirit and that life has much more to offer, in relationships, family bonds and fuel for the soul such as art, poetry, literature, meditation and other spiritual attentions. I use this enslavement to gods of productivity as another theme in the story.
I hope, if you’ve read or are reading the story, all of this makes sense to you. If you're not, I hope you’ll drop everything and jump into part one right now!
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What’s Next?
I don’t know!
There have also been some encouraging calls for the backstory of both Maya and Raman, even Sameera and Xarina, as well as a possible sequel to this story, because of course at the end, as you will see, there is this whole question of: what happens next? But for now I simply wish Raman: Bon voyage!
As always I’d love your comments and thoughts. Thank you.
A caveat: There’s so much misinformation and propaganda out there so I’ll say I don't know how true this is, but it made for an excellent story point so I used it.
I had to ponder on your “trilogy” because I couldn’t figure out what the overriding message was until the final installment. When I reread it, in its entirety, the love story emerged more fully. I was intrigued by the psychological subtheme of paranoia and anxiety. Great writing and thoughtful character development. Thanks for the notes too 🙏
I guess the way technology makes inroads into the lives of people is by solving problems that cause a lot of suffering. And there is so much suffering in the world, unfortunately.
For e.g., 42,514 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the US in 2022 (DoT-FARS data). I think these families will choose autonomous cars regardless of the ethical concerns related to autonomous decision making or privacy concerns due to data collection.
49,476 people died from suicide in the US in 2022 (KFF.org). Maybe some of these people wanted a caring person or two. If a robot is indistinguishable from a human and far better in terms of compassion and care, why not?