2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tuol Sleng II

 There were various kinds of cells at Tuol Sleng, but ultimately the treatment was the same.  

After an intake with an extensive interview, prisoners were assigned to different cells:  individual, smaller cells, or larger group cells.  Those in smaller cells were shackled to walls or the floor, those in large cells were shackled to an iron bar.  They slept without mat, mosquito netting, or blankets.  Rising time was 0430.  Meals were four small spoons of rice gruel and leafy soup twice a day.  Drinking water without permission resulted in a beating.  Talking resulted in a beating.

Fourteen cells were individual classrooms which had in them a single iron bed stand used for interrogation and torture. When the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979, they found 14 bodies in the 14 interrogation rooms that were had been slain only hours before by the retreating Khmer Rouge.

Outside of each cell is a listing of known prisoners who were kept - and killed - there.

These are the graves of the 14 individuals discovered by the Vietnamese Army.  Their names are unknown.

One of the "smaller" cells.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tuol Sleng I

 During the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, it is estimated that anywhere between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians died (of a population at the time of 7.8 million). It is also estimated that 33.5% of Cambodian men and 15.7% Cambodian women of the total population did not see the end of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.

After achieving power, the Khmer Rouge transferred city populations to the country and camps, where they were required to write an autobiography of their lives and their fate was determined.  Many were destined for "Re-education Camps", which generally meant death camps. The Santebal (Secret Police) operated up to 196 of the camps during that four year period; one of the worst (and their headquarters) was Tuol Sleng, located in Phnom Penh.

Tuol Sleng (known in the day as "S-21", or "The Hill of Poisonous Trees") was a converted high school.  There are a total of five buildings; these buildings were surrounded by electrified barbed wire and the classrooms converted into prison cells and torture chambers.

It is estimated that 20,000 people passed through the gates of Tuol Sleng during its operational history.  Prisoners were taken here, tortured and made to confess to crimes and name the names of their "associates" (who were of course then taken into custody), and then eventually died or were killed.  The prison ran out of space in 1976 to bury bodies and so executions and burials were transferred to another facility outside of Phnom Penh.

At the start, the prisoners were largely government officials and military members from the preceding regime.  However, as time went on, members of Khmer Rouge began to turn on each other and they, in turn, became the majority of the captives.

Approximately 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners were onsite at any on time. The average "stay" was 2 to 3 months.

(A sign above an entrance indicating "silence".  Prisoners were forbidden to talk to each other)

Of the estimated 20,000 prisoners that passed through Tuol Sleng, there are only 12 known survivors, seven adults and five children.  It has been more recent assessed that up to 179 individuals were released during the prison's operation, but it is believed many or most of them were rearrested or did not survive the fall of Phnom Penh in 1979.

The Rains Of November

 "Welcome to New Home 2.0.  It has been (0) days since we last had rain. Have a nice day."

Of the changes that happened when we relocated to New Home 2.0, one of the greatest that we were advised to prepare for was the weather.

New Home had a simple but standard weather pattern:  two seasons (Hot and Cold) punctuated by two to three weeks of pleasant weather known as Spring and Autumn.  New Home 2.0, we were told, had an actual seasonal spread.  

And it has - which has overall been a pleasant thing.  After years of no Spring and no Autumn, it is nice to be in a location where all four seasons is a reality. The leaves of Autumn and the flowers of Spring are wonderful.  Even Summer, which can be a bit hot from July - through mid-September, is manageable.

We were warned, however, about Winter.

Like almost any other clime, one effectively makes a deal with one's conscience that sacrifices will have to be made -in this case. that sacrifice is Winter.  Partially for the clouds, which seem to start in the middle of October and extend through the end of March, and partially for the rain, which can appear almost every day running if given the opportunity (of the coming 10 day forecast for example, only one day has no chance of rain).

Add in the darkness known as Daylight Savings Time, and, as one coworker told me last year, "It is just awful from November to February.  That is just how it is."

Everything comes with a price; greenery and beauty pay the cost of weather and temperature shifts.

One simply buys the gear and carries on.

 

A Year Of Humility (XVL): Do Not Be Zealous For Evil

I confess that I struggle with meekness.  I am not nearly as much so as I should be:  I push to the front too often, turn the focus upon myself more than I should, and demand the world be the way I desire it such that I would be offended if it were someone else.

That, I can deal with.  But have I ever thought about such behaviours as being zealous for evil?

I do not like to think myself evil of course; I suspect no sane person does.  And yet, I have to ask myself: If I am not truly being zealous for good, what am I being zealous for?  Surely there is not some kind of mediocre middle ground, a sort of middling thing that neither wins people nor offends them, a banal blandness that does nothing at all.

But that is not what the Bible offers us.  We are only, ever on a journey to one of two locations.  

Maybe I can argue myself down to being somehow passively good.  But that will not fill the bill either:  Christ was never passively good, nor were the apostles.  They were actively, zealously, good.

If I am not zealous for good, likely I am zealous for something else.

The Modern Luddite

 

I have to confess that the older I get, the more this is true for me. I am not quite at the point of completely abandoning new technology, but I am much slower about taken it on.

Honestly, older technology is far more interesting.

Relationships Of Proximity

 A couple of weeks ago, my pastor (in a sermon on friendship) introduced the idea of relationships of proximity.

The concept is that many of our relationships come into being not because of a shared interest or activity but simply because of the fact that we are in the presence of other people so often that, almost by accident, we enter friendships.  Often because we simply see each other so often.

To be fair I suppose, almost all friendships start with proximity - or at least, once upon a time.  I became friends with the people I was around the most:  first my sibling and cousins, then the children of my parents' friends, then people that I went to school with - then, in its final form, the people that happened to be wherever I was.

As I look at those relationships over the years, what I realize is that there was a time that I made friends not just because of proximity but because of interest and time:  Uisdean Ruadh and I started with shared interests in history and drama, The Director and I started with band and drama and role playing games.  

It can happen, of course, that proximity becomes true friendship:  La Marquessa and I met (literally) on the day before we graduated high school and found out we were going to the same college, Rainbow and I were coworkers that talked first about industry and then about shared interests, the Dog Whisperer and I started with work trauma and found out we have a shared love of animals.  But too often, proximity friendships expire when the proximity is removed.

If I look over the course of my life, I have easily gone to school and worked with hundreds of people over the years that I knew more than just a casual nodding. Of those relationships, 99% of them have disappeared to nothing more than faint glimpses on social or business media or a comment by a friend about them.  In a way that strikes me as odd, of course:  in the heat of the moment of school or work, experiences were shared that in some cases were unique or (at least in my case) were formative.  And yet for all of the emotion and passion that was poured into those moments, they slipped into the stream of time without a trace.

---

Another point of the sermon - beyond the nature of relationships of proximity - was the idea of consciously making and building relationships

This sets the idea of proximity on its head to some extent in the sense that we do not just rely on people "being around" to deepen the relationship.  We actively engage in building the relationship - and it can be with those near or far away - by partaking in common activities or, that most risky of activities, sharing about ourselves.

But it is a choice:  it is active, it is pursued.  It is not something that we just "wait" to happen.  It is something that we actively seek out to make happen.

Does it always work?  No, of course not.  Many are the times that a potentially deeper relationship fell apart because a fork in the road was reached where one party (or both) simply stopped the process.  Sometimes just stopping to actively engage is enough, given a world where our inputs are constant and if something is front and center, other things will flow in to take its place.

That said, that is still not a reason to try.

---

The final question, of course, is "What am I doing about it"?

This hard for me to answer.  Yes, I am in a new location (and in a weird sort of way, already had contacts when I moved here through Iaijutsu), and the possibilities, while not endless, are present:  beyond coworkers, I have interests I have had in the past and church.

And yet I find myself strangely reluctant.

Part of that, I suppose, I could blame on the fact that even 1.5 years, I have no idea if this is a "permanent" place - not that this should impact my ability to build relationships, but it somehow does in my mind.  Another part is the risk - perhaps as prevalent as it has been in the last 10 years - that opening up to relationship in a contentious environment runs the risk of making environments uncomfortable.

But I must be mindful to press on - after all, much like with any growing thing, if there is not renewal at some point things pass into senescence, and then failure.

The Collapse CCXII: The Day Of Christmas

 25 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

“’Sire, the night grows darker now, and the wind grows stronger.

Fails my heart, I know not how. I can go no longer.’

‘Mark my footsteps my good page, tread Thou in them boldly,

Thou wilt find the Winter’s rage freeze Thy blood less coldly.’”

Christmas Day came this morning with nary a whisper of clouds or snow, only the clear cold sky with fading stars and the hint of sun from the East as we bundled up and trundled out towards The Post Office. As we got closer, occasional bobbing lights betrayed the progress of others, Christmas Will-O-The-Wisps’ making their way across the snow.

I had not been into the The Post Office for some time following its initial remodel by Young Xerxes and the team he had cobbled together – not really since Young Xerxes’ plea some months ago. The room itself was much changed, widened by the removal of interior items and warmed by a wood stove which had been relocated from somewhere else – the efforts of my wood collection now being apparent.

Most impressive, however, were the Christmas decorations.

Somehow, Lucilius, a Christmas tree with decorations and of all things, lights, blazed away in one corner of the room. The room was hung with green and red tinsel, relics of an industrialized age that produced such things in abundance. Pictures had been applied to the walls, pictures from Christmas decorations of long ago, even before my time.

Along the back wall sat a table.

Having come in, we were of course put to work, pulling out folding chairs that had been transferred from the court room as hot tea in cups was thrust into our hand. Another of those irresistible was pressed into my hands.

As we worked away setting up chairs, more people kept coming in. And coming. And coming.

As they came, the back table began to fill up with, of all things, food. Oh, not the sort of feast that one would associate with Christmas once upon a time. There were quite a lot of jars of preserved food there, along with bread and what appeared to be cookies. But that was a spread that I had not seen in some days.

By the time it was a reasonable hour of the morning, I think almost every member of the community was there – yes, even some members of our Erstwhile neighbors though sadly not all. Still too soon, I suppose.

Still, with almost 60 people there, we had more than enough.

After a brief (very brief) prayer, breakfast started – topped by, of all things, venison and half a boiled egg for each of us. Yes, it was the oddest of Christmas breakfasts – my bowl filled with sauerkraut, pickles, venison, yet another biscuit, half a boiled egg, and a cookie – but it was a meaningful and delicious a Christmas meal as I had observed in many year.

After the meal ended, two to three of the folks I remembered having instruments pulled them out. And, of course, we sang the Carols of Christmas.

I say “Sang”. That may be a misnomer of sorts as not everyone could sing – at least well. And to be completely fair, some of the verses were perhaps a little different than I might remember.

After the songs went on for a while, Pompeia Paulina pulled me up and handed me a Bible opened to the New Testament. And so, after many years of reading it silently, I read the Christmas story out loud and openly.

There is something, Lucilius, about sharing the Christmas story verbally. Perhaps it is tied to memories of hearing it years ago, in church on Christmas Eve with family now long gone or reading it aloud to my own family. That story, so simple and yet so profound, can speak to us in every era.

Even in an era of a Collapse.

After I finished and sat down, one of the musicians started picking out the notes to Silent Night. And so, we sang to the crackle of a fire under the garish lights of a Christmas tree made truly magical by the fact that such magic did not happen like this at all.

At the end, there was a natural moment of silence. We all sat there in the glow of fire and lights and sunlight through the windows.

Perhaps not truly Peace on Earth, Lucilius, but perhaps as much as we are likely to find in these troubled times.

“In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted,

Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.

Therefore Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing:

Ye that now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.”

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Random Phnom Penh

 Independence Monument, built in 1958 to celebrate Cambodian Independence from France.  It is meant to reflect a blooming lotus and stands 37 m (121 ft) high:

Behind it is the Norodom Sihanouk Memorial, built in 2013 to commemorate King Norodom Sihanouk:

Apparently it was graduation time; students were getting their pictures in front of the monument:

Looking back from the Independence Monument:

Looking back from the Norodom Sihanouk Monument:

A rarity for an American:  The North Korean Embassy

Armistice Day 2025

 In Flanders Fields

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Lt. Colonel John McCrae 03 May 1915

A Time And Place That Does Not Exist Anymore

 

(Note:  Possibly AI generated.)\

One of the unusual advantages afforded me by going to Old Home so often over the past 5.5 years that I regularly drive through my old home town and, upon occasion, go up my old street.

I grew up in the same house for my entire life.  The street - a small one with maybe twenty houses back then with a dead end - was a sort of community.  For years - probably until early high school - owners did not change very often and thus we knew everyone that lived there.  Some of my grade school and high school classmates lived on the street.  Even today, there are a few families there from that period of time.

When I was in what is now the equivalent of middle school (6th - 8th grade), one of my best friends moved up just up the hill from my house.  To get to his house, I could have walked all the way down the street and around and up the hill with their drive way - or, I could (and did) walk up the gravel road next to our house, cut through the property next door, go under two fences, and just arrive.  It was the same with my other school friends who were farther away but within walking distance - in fact, walking the fields and forests that were between myself and them was far safer than trying to walk the roads that led to their houses.

---

I could take you back there now.  The street is still there, although it no longer dead-ends but runs into the previous pasture next to it which itself has become built over with houses.  At least two of our original neighbors live there; the rest of the homes have turned over in the intervening years, including the one I grew up in - which is now worth 7.5 times the amount my parents paid for it.

The pastures and woods and paths I walked are now more built up or fenced off.  I could, if I wanted to, get to the back woods where most of my 7th and 8th grade years were spent running through trees and building forts - but somehow a man in his 50's on private property is a little more of a concern than a boy of 12.

---

That sort of nostalgia clouds my entire view of that time of course.  It is fair to say that life was "simpler" back then - but then again, I was a child and then a teenager in a middle class household where we went to church every Sunday and had breakfast and dinner together almost every night.  Part of my extended family were near.  The great "issues" I faced in life seem almost ridiculous by today's standards, a combination of unrequited love and role playing games and music and drama and the sorts of things that seem so far away both from my life now - but also from the lives of my children when they were that age.

The world, in the intervening years, became far more complex and complicated.

---

Am I homesick for a time and place I can never return to?

In one sense, no.  Heraclitus' admonition that we can never step into the same river twice remains as true as it ever was.  Even when I go back to visit now, it is not the same.  Even if I relocated there, the people are gone, the world has become much older and sadder, and I am have grown older as well, with the wear and cares and scars that life as an adult brings.

And yet, in another sense, yes.

As much as it is impossible to recreate, there is a part of me that wants that simpler life - not from the sense of re-creating it (that can never happen) as much from a sense of enjoying the same feeling from it.  There was a certain sense of place and being surrounded by those that I did life with, my school friends and family that has been extracted over years of moving to a series of destinations that were home, but only for a while (as it turns out) and a series of people that I associated with (and they with me) that was driven as much by proximity as by mutual interests.

That - that sense of place and people and, in a real sense, purpose - seems lost in a way that it is unlikely to return.

A Year Of Humility (XIVL): Decency

I would not expect to find an aspect of humility from Kurt Vonnegut, of whom I have vague knowledge of a writer (and having been scarred by his book Slaughterhouse Five at an age I should not have been reading it) who once described himself as a "Christ Loving Atheist", but the quote above struck me pretty deeply.

Decency strikes me as the common man's kindness. Decent (per Merriam-Webster) means "Proper and fitting; not immodest, not obscene, chaste; conforming to social standards, respectable; reasonably good or adequate; fair and kind".  And if you think about it, those things are all pretty easy to offer to one another.  The phrase "Common Decency" conveys the whole meaning, really:  a common sense of responsible fairness and fitting behaviour of respect for others.  

It can be as simple as waiting for someone else to enter or helping someone with a heavy item.  It can be as meaningful as keeping quiet in a moment where others shout or laugh away or taking upon ourselves the unkind or uncharitable comment meant for another. It can simply be not noticing a thing that, were it called out, could create a moment of embarrassment.

It becomes even more important, as Vonnegut points out, in a society that is none of these things.

It had never struck me before that to be humble is to be decent but upon consideration, why would it not be?  Part of being humble is to think of others; is not decency the simple practice of thinking of others in our everyday social situations?
 

Be Like A The Cat

I went from being an lost waif on the street to an upper middle-class income lifestyle including 24 hour servants, indoor plumbing, free medical care, two full meals a day, exciting cross-country travel, and 18 hours a day for naps.

Follow Me for more lifestyle hints!

Modernity And Nature's News

 This quote by Muir strikes me both as grounded and fanciful.

It is grounded in that it so clearly describes a condition I (at least) suffer too much from:  the degeneration into a machine for making money.  Arguably of course this is a real condition:  for better or worse, the modern world runs on money and I (for better or worse) am in the modern world.  

And it is easy - too easy - to get drawn in by all of this.  How easily my allotted and expected work time of 40 hours a week creeps upward into the 50s or more as tasks appear on my list, important things which "must get done" - even as I remind myself that my life has been full of critical projects and timelines that all "had to get done" but which 95% went absolutely nowhere but into the abyss of failed products and failed products.

And yes, it is easy to say that I often learn nothing from "the trivial world of men".  Certainly not in the current events or popular culture of the modern world; if anything, the more I step away from it the more I realize it has little to offer.  I do learn from the world of men, but it is a world that is now past us, a world of the ancients and the historical, of things that have stood the test of time instead of the flush and flash of modern thinking.

But fanciful as well.

Do the mountains (or Nature) have news?  Of course they do, for those with ears and eyes to see it.  And yes, perhaps Muir was able to "break away" to hear it.  But most of us - certainly myself - are not in a position to "break away" at will.  We have to take our news as we can get it, through walks or working outdoors or the hikes or outings fit in to that mundane world of work. 

There is, perhaps, a combination where such a thing works -neither degraded into a money-making trivial loving automaton nor fleeing the world without a consideration of responsibilities - but it seems beyond me at this point.  At best I can try to find an uncomfortable compromise, pushing back work to its acceptable boundaries and increasing the other world in a planned and thoughtful way.

Is this the price of civilization?  I am not sure.  But it is certainly the price of the modern world, which makes both royalty and servants of most of us.

The Collapse CCXI: The Eve Of Christmas

 24 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

“Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the Feast of Stephen,

when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shown the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,

when a poor man came in sight, gath’ring Winter fuel.”

Roll call this morning was a very organized affair. I say “roll call”, because Pompeia Paulina had me up and out of bed in a very organized fashion this morning. A quick – and I mean quick – breakfast, and we were off into the cold, clear morning with the tracks beginning to freeze into the snow.

Our destination was the old Post Office, now converted into our “central headquarters” (a rather wildly overshot description for such a thing). Imagine my surprise to see a dozen people there or coming as we arrived: Statiera, Young Xerxes, friends of Young Xerxes, the Alcmaeonids, even some of our Erstwhile neighbors.

All, curiously, men with their wives.

“’Hither page and stand by me and if thou knowest, telling,

Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”

‘Sire, he lives a good league underneath, the mountain.

Right along the forest fence, by St. Agnes’ fountain.’”

Within 10 minutes of gathering, we were all “given” our orders for the day. Men were split up and sent in various directions. The women, after giving instructions, headed in the Post Office – with strict instructions that we were to knock and not enter (as opposed to before entering).

Young Xerxes and one of his friends was gifted with the task of heading out to the East for something. Mine was...gathering wood.

“’Bring me flesh and bring me wine, bring me pines logs hither,

Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither’

Forth the went monarch and page, forth they went together,

Through the cruel wind’s wild lament, and the bitter weather.”

And so, I spent my day gathering wood.

Someone had generously donated a sled to the cause, which made things a little easier. Out I tromped to past the house to gather wood, break or cut it into smaller pieces, and put it on the sled. Back I would drag it to the Post Office and start a wood pile. Thankfully the day was at least sunny, so much so I reached the point of having to shed an outer layer.

Lunch, after dragging back another load, was some kind of beef jerky, dried fruit, and an honest to goodness fresh biscuit. How long has it been since I had one of those.

By the time the sun was sinking behind the hills, I flatter myself that I had dragged enough wood over to light the halls of Heorot, although I suspect my Anglo-Saxon ancestors would not have been impressed with my efforts.

That night, Pompeia Paulina seemed in an almost joyous mood, something which has seemed to elude her of recent days.

I have to confess, Lucilius, I have not looked so forward to a Christmas Day in years.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: The Silver Pagoda

The Silver Pagoda (Wat Preah Keo Morakot, or "Temple of the Emerald Crystal Buddha") is located on the greater Cambodian Royal Palace Grounds.  The temple itself was completed in the 19th Century.  It is known as the Silver Pagoda by tourists as the floor is covered with 5,329 silver tiles, each weighing 1.25 kg. ( you cannot walk directly on them).  Additionally, the temple is filled with over 1600 artifacts of Buddhism including many items of gold and silver.  The masterpiece is a standing statue of Maitreya Buddha of gold which weighs 90 kg (198 lbs.) and includes 9584 diamonds, including one of 25 carats.  It also includes a green crystalline Buddha manufactured in the 18th or 19 Century.

Sadly, no pictures are allowed in the interior.

Outside of the Silver Pagoda.  The model you see in front of it is of Angkor Wat, which we will soon be visiting.

Outside of the temple itself is a walled structure which has a mural of the Reamker, a Cambodian epic poem dating from 1903-1904:

A Stupa.  These structures serve as tombs of former monarchs:

The model of Angkor Wat.  The murals are in the background:

A fancy (and traditional)  loom:

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Cambodian Royal Palace III

 More views of the Cambodian Royal Palace Complex:

The Naploeon III Palace.  It appears singularly unlovely amidst the traditional Cambodian architecture:

Weapons belonging to the Cambodian Royal House (Because it is me, and I will always take pictures of weapons):

For Leigh:  A collection of clothing worn by the Cambodian Royals:

The Life You Hoped For

No, I am not feeling particularly sad or nostalgic now.  This popped up in my feed and it struck me for some reason.  

I do not know that I have a life I would have hoped for, honestly because I am not sure that I know that that life would have been. I have written before about a series of lives that I thought I would have had but for various and sundry reasons never really materialized as one might have hoped for.  Possibly that was because I never really wanted them, possibly because as time goes on we learn to let go of things more easily and with less grieving.

My life is good.  I scarcely have a thing to truly complain about, and anything that I do have to complain over would largely fall into the category of "First World Problems".  If my career choice is not what thrills me (honestly probably my biggest complaint), at least it has kept us fed and housed well all these years and truly, I have always been able to find another job.

(Source)

Do I have mistakes that I grieve? Of course.  A lot of them involve people and my relationships with them, some of them involve things that meant that life took a very different turn indeed.  I certainly try to make less of them now, but I still stumble.

Still - like the Piper quote above - the frog struck me as well.  Only those who never make anything never make a mistake. Comforting to realize that without the mistakes, the rest never happens either.

I find a quiet comfort in these thoughts as I sit writing this on the first day post Daylight Savings time, when the sun is clearly not where it should be but shining brightly on the red and golden leaves and naked branches of Autumn.  I can become troubled about the world at times, but these sorts of things remind me that these, too, are in God's control.  I need only be attentive to His hand to see them.

A Year Of Humility (XIIIL): Candles

 

Have you ever had the experience of someone out of your past reaching out to you unexpectedly?

It can be a call or an e-mail or a chat or even a letter - out of the blue.  It can be surprising at first - after all, weeks or months or years or even decades can have gone by.  As the conversation goes on, you begin to realize that the person reached out to you not because of a need they had - a situation, an encounter, a series of words - and the first person they thought of that could help them is you.

Do not be so concerned about this, suggests Nektarios in the above quote.  Like a candle, you have somehow lit a way for them in times past and they believe you can do so again.

 In our darkest hour we search for that which can comfort and illuminate, not necessarily that which is front and center.  The humble remember that to be of great use to others does not always require being a constant focus of attention.

The Age Of Privacy

 Some weeks ago - after my return from The Grand Canyon - my Mother in Law sent me a text just checking in with how the hike had gone.  I let her know it had gone well and had been an enjoyable experience for all involved.  

The question surprised me a bit - I was sure at some point she and The Ravishing Mrs. TB had talked - but in her follow up, she noted that she looked forward to seeing pictures from the hike.

The reality was that - for the first time in a very long time - I had posted no pictures of my adventures on any social media platform.

---

Our age - at least for certain age brackets - has become an age of complete openness.  People share everything - their adventures, their meals, their gatherings, their emotions, their interests.  In some ways these can be valuable things - especially the interests for example, where I have come to find I have common ground in certain things with individuals all over the world.  The other side of it, of course, is that with this sharing comes a complete loss of privacy.

For some people, I can tell a great deal about their lives:  where they live, what they enjoy, who their friends are, what beliefs they hold, some estimate of their income bracket - things that once upon a time were the sort of things that we had to gather by actually knowing someone.  

Now, that information is almost thrown at us.

---

Interestingly, there seems to be some kind of age differentiation in this.  Na Clann's generation, at least in my immediate circle, seems to post infrequently or not at all (although that may simply be due to the fact that the platforms they might post on are the same their parents post on, and who wants that).  The generation behind me and ahead of me seems to post much more frequently.

Or not.  There is a whole slew of people I know in my own age bracket who post almost nothing.

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One of the great privileges of life is privacy:  the simple idea that one has the right to lead one's life in one's own way without any requirement to have people intrude in it or know about it.  This has often been a noticeable different between non-authoritarian/totalitarian and democratic/republican (note the non-capitalized letters there) governments:  East Germany, for example, was famous for the government surveillance apparatus.  China, or at least from what I read, employs a network that essentially tracks everything that you do (including how you spend your money).  And North Korea - well, I cannot imagine a private moment there that somehow does not have government sanction.

One of the greatest privileges of life - and yet we now live in an age where such things are casually thrown to the wind.

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At one time I posted like everyone else.  Do I think I will go back?

Probably not.

Part of it is simply that with a general retreat from Social Media, it is simply not something I do now - at least to the general public.  There is a smaller group of my friends with whom I share such things, but really is that not the way it should be?  Friends sharing with friends, not friends sharing with the entire world?

Will it "cost" me a few likes or having experiences that no-one else knows about?  Yes.  But ultimately, is not life an experiential event viewed from our own perspective or interpreted via ourselves through our lens?  Far better to focus on processing those thoughts and experiences ourselves or with a few rather than sending them to the four corners of the Earth without thought.