How I Became a Robot: John Oldenborg

I started to become a robot when I was thirteen, just out of my tweenage years and into adolescence, not only in the sense that I began to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but also in the sense that my personality began to change. My first sci-fi novel was "The Supernaturalist" by Eoin Colfer (famous for his Artemis Fowl series), a book geared towards a younger audience. The idea of ethereal bugs leeching the "life" out of people was so oddly peculiar to my thirteen year old brain. I loved it. I recall that the next novel I read was Asimov's collection of robot stories in his work "I Robot". I believe I read the book before seeing the movie, but I loved both, although I don't remember much from the book, as it was way past my level of reading comprehension at the time.

Growing up in Cape Coral, Florida, circa February 22, 1995, there were not many things to do, and going to a private school in the neighboring town, there weren't many friends I lived near. So I occupied my time with videogames and reading. Shortly after being introduced to science fiction, I stumbled upon the series I would occupy myself with for the rest of my middle school years: Warhammer 40,000. It began with playing the RTS computer game, then ended up with me purchasing over 25 individual novels and over 5 omnibus, each particular story averaging 500 pages of gory, power armored, blood steaming goodness. Warhammer 40k was particularly violent and particularly sci-fi, saturated with chainswords, las-guns, heavy bolters, space cruisers, space hulks, and giant cybernetic Dreadnoughts. The Space Marines were infinitely badass to me, humanity's final stand against droves of Chaos Daemons, Orks, Tau, and Eldar. The whole concept of an inhuman human, a human who must be completely cold and hardened, a human with two hearts and extra superhuman organs, a human of giant stature, yet a human who must maintain his humanity, was amazing to me, for if humanity must become inhuman to defend itself, then there is truly no point in defending it, for it is lost in the process anyway. Despite their efforts, humanity never seemed to achieve any headway, its existence was a bleak existence, plagued by fear, in hopes that a Corpse God, their Emperor, would rise again to save them. He never did. At the time, I might not have realized how such a series could affect me at such an impressionable age, but today, there is no doubt in my mind that it has influenced me to be the person I am today, for better or worse.

In a sense I started becoming like Asimov's Mars robot, I couldn't process what decisions to make, going into high school, and therefore, I made no decision, instead running in circles between many choices and outcomes, entirely indecisive. I wanted to become 'popular', but I loved doing unpopular things, I loved videogames and sci-fi. Naturally, I wasn't 'popular', I went to a Catholic School which had a heavy emphasis on sports, and the bleak and bloodthirsty nature of Warhammer primed me to respond in a reciprocal fashion to my failures. I began seeing people as cruel, myopic, and arrogant, and to a large extent they were (and are), it is human nature to prefer and protect the self, even altruism roots from preference and preservation of the self. I hated them. I loathed them. If this was what humanity was, I wanted no part of it. I became anti-social, I became misanthropic, I became angry, I became atheistic. Soon, though, I became apathetic, I became a Space Marine, I became inhuman, I became a robot. 

Eventually I made some relatively good friends after accepting who I was and what I loved, but to this day I am shy and anti-social, sometimes very apathetic to everything. I don't believe in any Corpse God, and I am very cynical towards my species. To say that science-fiction passively influenced my personality would be an understatement. Once you become a Space Marine, you're never fully human ever again, you cling to it, you try to protect it, you love it, but to an extent, your humanity is lost in space. 

Today, I am very much a robot.