I have to confess to you that the longer this year has gone on, the more and more I have been overcome by a desire and need to simply disappear from visibility.
It is not as if I have some amazing reason like my security has been compromised or I have been called out by someone or wrongfully accused or anything like that. It is just that it feels more and more like the world is pushing into my business.
Between my cell phone, my e-mail at work, and various and sundry cameras spread all over, my presence is pretty much known. Even now, Blogger can tell you precisely when I logged on to type this and when I uploaded it. My every financial decision which is not cash based is known and even those which could be cashed based but for which the payment is in a computer system is known.
My house, thankfully, is relatively free of this oppressive observation - except, of course, for all the cell phones herein, the streaming services which know what is being watched, and the utilities which records how much electricity is being expended to keep our summer heated house cool.
In other words, even my retreat is effectively being watched.
I am working on small and minor ways to disappear, of course - every social media account I do not open, every cash purchase I make - all of these are very small acts of resistance against a seemingly all-encompassing foe. But it is not really enough.
Freedom - true freedom, defined as freedom of privacy, the freedom to do something and have no-one know what was done, has almost disappeared in the world as we know it. We are left with the few small crumbs we can eke out, the wattle barriers we throw up in hopes that the Roman juggernaut will enmesh its spears in them and so be unable to attack.
I have added this to my list of goals over the next four years - I may not get there, but at least I can work to find ways to put space between me and the observation system. Any thin layer of padding I can add, any mist I can conjur up, anything that pulls one stake out of my hide, is worth doing.
Free men and women value their privacy. It is only those that value complete control that think they need to know everything about everyone.
It's soul-crushing. I saw Bookface and Tweeter for the traps they were the second I saw them. But... there is this about that: our enemies can't hide anymore either. And WE can watch THEM too. There are necessary evils in this world for all of us.
ReplyDeleteLove your last paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThe only way I know to get away from big brother is to live completely off the grid.
Glen - You are correct. It is soul crushing when you realize how much we are watched anymore. You are also correct that more and more, those that would do us harm are equally exposed.
ReplyDeleteThe task, I think, is to leave them exposed and us less so.
Thank you Linda!
ReplyDeleteEven living off the grid is not what it once was - there are at least property tax records and (if you have one), automobile records. My realistic challenge seems to be how far can I disappear in an urban environment.
I can so relate to this post. It seems ludicrous that people should be so obsessed with trying to own and control others. Are their real lives so meaningless that they think this will make them somebody?
ReplyDeleteI would add that free men and women not only value their privacy, but respect the privacy of others as well.
Leigh, I think it is simply a power thing: people want control over the lives of others. They want not to be challenged. They want everyone (ultimately) to be their servants, or at least the servants of their ideas.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, most free men and women I know simply want to be left alone - and a surprising amount want to leave others alone.