None of your business if I do!
Privacy. It's a political concept as well as a religious one, and it's the political aspects which caused me to write this essay in the first place. Privacy is one of those things that is absolutely necessary and yet politically difficult to accept. We all want to know what the people we don't like are up to, and we all want the people we don't like to not know what we're doing.
So why am I so obsessed with privacy? It's not because I'm "up to" anything .. far's I can tell, I'm a fairly boring. I write my novels, I write this, I play some video games, I mother my child .. someone could watch me every hour of the day and not find anything objectionable. This doesn't change the fact that if someone WAS watching me, my behavior would change. It's impossible to behave the same way while watched than it is while unwatched. (and who the person was would change things, too .. if it was someone I know, like my husband, my behavior would change less than if it was a stranger .. if child protective services was watching, EVEN THOUGH I do not mistreat my child, I'd still change my behavior out of paranoia. It's impossible to behave the same way while watched).
Part of our identity is what we do when there is no one and nothing watching us. Who we are in the Dark Flame. When we have no space for our privacy, when our Dark Flame is suppressed "for the public good", we smother ourselves. I don't think that's worth it. I value myself too much to accept that kind of surveillance, and I value other people too much to watch them, too. It's just not worth the cost.
Questions:
How do I view privacy, and do I respect people's? Sometimes I think I over-respect it, to the point of being afraid to intrude on other people even when invited. But without that space of freedom, we lose ourselves. I would not intrude on that for other people any more than I'd want other people to intrude on mine.
What do I only do alone? In high school, it was gardening. It gave me space to think and to relax. And I did miss it, for years. I thought what I wanted was the gardening, but what I really wanted was the space. Now that I'm a mom, that time is when I just have a bath for half an hour while my husband watches the baby. It's a chance to just let my mind wander and to have nothing I need to worry about. And I NEED that time, too. It helps to make me whole.
The Dark Flame's need for renewal .. I really don't think that's something that can recharge in public. It can perhaps recharge when you are with people, but that's not always the same thing .. it's the alone in a crowd thing. Even then, it's much harder when you are with other people. There is no freedom to be without internal censor when there are other people watching. It's much harder to risk failure when you know someone IS watching ....
So why am I so obsessed with privacy? It's not because I'm "up to" anything .. far's I can tell, I'm a fairly boring. I write my novels, I write this, I play some video games, I mother my child .. someone could watch me every hour of the day and not find anything objectionable. This doesn't change the fact that if someone WAS watching me, my behavior would change. It's impossible to behave the same way while watched than it is while unwatched. (and who the person was would change things, too .. if it was someone I know, like my husband, my behavior would change less than if it was a stranger .. if child protective services was watching, EVEN THOUGH I do not mistreat my child, I'd still change my behavior out of paranoia. It's impossible to behave the same way while watched).
Part of our identity is what we do when there is no one and nothing watching us. Who we are in the Dark Flame. When we have no space for our privacy, when our Dark Flame is suppressed "for the public good", we smother ourselves. I don't think that's worth it. I value myself too much to accept that kind of surveillance, and I value other people too much to watch them, too. It's just not worth the cost.
Questions:
How do I view privacy, and do I respect people's? Sometimes I think I over-respect it, to the point of being afraid to intrude on other people even when invited. But without that space of freedom, we lose ourselves. I would not intrude on that for other people any more than I'd want other people to intrude on mine.
What do I only do alone? In high school, it was gardening. It gave me space to think and to relax. And I did miss it, for years. I thought what I wanted was the gardening, but what I really wanted was the space. Now that I'm a mom, that time is when I just have a bath for half an hour while my husband watches the baby. It's a chance to just let my mind wander and to have nothing I need to worry about. And I NEED that time, too. It helps to make me whole.
The Dark Flame's need for renewal .. I really don't think that's something that can recharge in public. It can perhaps recharge when you are with people, but that's not always the same thing .. it's the alone in a crowd thing. Even then, it's much harder when you are with other people. There is no freedom to be without internal censor when there are other people watching. It's much harder to risk failure when you know someone IS watching ....
posted by Vieva | 9:01 AM
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