How do I feel about the concept of privacy?

My first question from a subscriber!

I think privacy allows a person to consider their identity without the weight of others’ perception. When I think about a question privately, I can focus on my own opinions and conclusions, without worrying what others might think. I can figure out who I am, what I think, and how I feel, in the context of my own thoughts and experiences, before subjecting those answers to the thoughts and experiences of others. 

It is usually a “before,” for me; others’ thoughts, opinions and experiences are coming. 

I think there is a lot of utility for privacy. I actually think some — many? all? — relationships require the boundary of privacy, because removing that boundary complicates or destroys the directionality of that relationship. There are things I don’t want my parents to know about me, because they are my parents. There are things I do want my parents to know about me, because they are my parents. Maintaining privacy doesn’t make a relationship lesser; it just makes it specific. And every relationship is specific. 

I also think there is a lot of utility in choosing to violate your own privacy. I’m trying to think of a less violent way to say that. Maybe I could say: I think there is a lot of utility in revising or rewriting your parameters around privacy, or changing something you’ve classified as private to something you classify as shared. For example, when you are starting to become friends with someone, sharing something intimate and personal can lead to a closer, more vulnerable friendship, which can feel like one of the biggest blessings of being alive.  

When I was younger, I thought that privacy and being a good person were indirectly correlated; to be a good person, one must have little to no emotional privacy. One must tell everyone everything that they might be curious to know, because otherwise one is being mean, and being mean is Bad. As a kid, I found myself divulging personal information to just about anyone I met. I considered myself very friendly, approachable, and easy to talk to, all of which made me a Good Person. 

The upside was that I could call myself a Good Person; the downside was I felt frenetic and confused by my own actions. I remember — not specifically, but broadly, because it happened more than once — leaving a conversation with a relative stranger, and thinking, why did I tell them that? I would look back on a conversation and realize I had told them something far too tender for a relationship that couldn’t even yet be called friendship. I felt embarrassed, but mostly I felt confused — how did that happen? How did I tell them so much? Did I want to? What do I want random people to know? What if I don’t want them to know everything? Am I a Bad Person because I want to keep things to myself? 

The antidote — and contradiction — to a lot of this confusion was journaling. The part of me that journaled was the part of me that knew, deep down, that maintaining emotional privacy didn’t make me a bad person. The contradictory part is that while I wanted to tell everyone everything, I also didn’t want to say anything mean. This applied to my journal as well. Even in my most private inner sanctum, I didn’t write mean things, because I didn’t allow myself to have mean thoughts. Having mean thoughts, whether I recorded them in a journal, said them aloud, or just thought them, would’ve made me a Bad Person, and the whole point of all this was to not be a Bad Person. 

Then, when I was in middle school, I read Anne Frank’s diary, and my main take-away somewhat hilariously was, wow, she’s so honest in her diary. I also read Harriet the Spy around that time, and similarly concluded that the purpose of a journal is to hold nothing back, even the mean thoughts. I started to write like Anne Frank and/or like Harriet the Spy; I talked shit about people; I judged them; I made conclusions about my family and about society; I talked shit about myself; I judged myself. 

Later on in life, I eventually became capable of not telling every person everything. Like any skill, it took conscious effort and practice. I’m not sure when I finally was able to maintain my own emotional privacy without trying so hard — it certainly wasn’t at the beginning of college, and it might not have even been by the end of college. It’s still hard! I still sometimes have the impulse to divulge deep personal truths to strangers, and sometimes I do. But when I want to, I hold myself back, because I know I have time. I have time to tell people things when I want. I have time to tell them who I am when I want to, if I want to. I don’t feel the same obligation I once did. I no longer owe every single person my entire emotional landscape.  

However, part 1. 

People open up to me all the time. Friends, yes, but also people I don’t know well and people I’ve just met. Sometimes it’s on public transit. Sometimes it’s in the lobby of a theater. In a kitchen, a cafeteria, a box office, a hallway, outside. And I love it. I find people so interesting. Seriously. Any person. Is so interesting. The things they’ve experienced! The way they describe those things! The narrative that forms, subconsciously and consciously! The things they laugh about; the things they tell me while making direct eye contact; the things they tell me while looking away. 

I feel so grateful and so lucky any time someone chooses to tell me something that sits below the surface. I don’t ask for it. I don’t ever want to ask for it, because I don’t want anyone to feel that sense of obligation that once governed my life. You grant people access to your interiority when you want to, and not a moment before, and maybe not ever. It’s yours to give; it’s yours to keep! 

However, part 2. 

In my thirties, I find myself horse-shoeing back to sharing deeply personal truths with near strangers. In conversations, yes, but for the most part, in my art. I write plays about my most painful, confusing experiences. I employ metaphor and abstraction in order to more accurately divulge my personal experience; everything I write is realism, no matter how fantastical the plot or the characters or the setting. I’m trying to tell you something about my life (maybe give me insight between black and white). I tried stand-up comedy for the first time recently (what the hell), and I told a room of strangers my most harrowing, personal embarrassments. And they all laughed. And I felt fucking exhilarated. 

Like a song with an A-A-B-A structure, I’m doing the same thing as before, but it feels different, because of what happened in between. I used to feel like I owed everyone everything, and if I didn’t give it to them, I was Bad. I no longer believe that. Choosing to give it to them anyway feels good. 

I am grateful when you choose to tell me a random thought you had, or something that’s eating you alive, or a deep, dark secret. But you don’t have to. I’ll be here if you want to talk, or if you don’t. Either way, I’ll be here doing whatever embarrassing, weird — BUT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, ALSO PROFOUND — shit I get to next.