I was born in the front room of this house Feb. 28, 1978. My brother Will followed in the same front downstairs room (just peeking over the fence) two years later, followed by my sister Nile two years after that. We were all born in the front room of this little house just off of Sunset Blvd.
It’s funny to find it on Street View.
Andy Warhol got it wrong. In the future, everyone will get to be anonymous for 15 minutes, and then only if they win the lottery. Because we’ll record everything, and get to experience what others are experiencing (i.e. recording) in real-time. Like a whole body video-phone, but way more information and resolution. The first prize winner will get to go to the “Privacy Box” and use the toilet unrecorded and alone for the first time ever, just for the thrill of it. Very soon, children won’t understand the meaning of the word privacy, because it will have lost hold as a meme. We’ll gladly share our lives with the billions of netizens who scour the internet for something, anything, to amuse them or move them, and this will erode privacy until it disappears like a sugarlump in your mint tea. And me sharing this is a part of that process, the voluntary erosion of privacy.
Frankly, I’m not sad to see it go. Perhaps we’re too private as a culture? Out of fear or ego, or feeling less than? What is to be gained from being private? What is to be lost?
I ask you: What are the pros and cons of privacy?
I feel like the only thing we fear people seeing is our naked need and humanity. Our frailty. I’ll speak for myself, I fear being seen naked and alone and afraid. But I’ve been naked and alone and afraid, and it wasn’t that bad. I lived through the nakedness and aloneness, and the fear. Plus it made for a great story. This story involved a solo swim to a deserted island off the coast of Cuba, a swim I told no one I was going on. But that’s a story for another time.
But tell that story I will, and I’ll lose nothing by telling it. (I’ll say this, when my brother and a few friends pulled up on that boat and rescued my tired and sunburned self from the ocean, I was GLAD to be seen naked and fearful and alone. Better seen than unseen when it comes to ocean rescue. :)
My point is that when I share myself, I lose nothing. A degree of my anonymity perhaps, but in this day and age, when everyone is just a google search away, anonymity is dwindling away. What I gain is the feeling you get when you share a piece of yourself freely, not knowing where it’s going or whose life it will touch. I gain knowing that a tiny slice of who I am and what I think in this moment as I type these very words is going out into the circuits, archived for as long as we have archives, and available for anyone to encounter. What I gain is connection with my fellow humans and connection with the eternity of human consciousness. That is a big gain!
As translation software improves language barriers will fall. Communication will be made easier, faster, and more reliable. All texts will be available in any language, instantly.
The time of sharing is at hand. Now is the time to share oneself with the rest of your fellow human beings. To be private now is to risk hoarding an idea that could potentially improve human life immeasurably. Now is a bad time for idea hoarding. Human existence stands at a crux, that is plain and true. The many billions desperately need the ideas and crowd-sourcing power of many billions.
If privacy stands in the way of increased communication and equality, let it fall away. Let all barriers between humans fall away. We are all of us fighting a great war inside. Let us come together and fear together and love together.
If privacy and fear keep us sad and alone, let us give up privacy and fear.
Be who you are. Your fabulous self. Out loud and for the world to see. If you haven’t got a blog, start one now. Your species needs your help.
Love,
Jackson
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