came upon a grave
Published February 9, 2007 | 
If I wasn’t, then why would I say I am?
-eminem
So this is me. These are my eyes, this is my nose. I’m old, I’m gray. I own very little. By western standards I am poor, by global standards I’m rich. I live in a very small town. I work on the web. I live on the network. You can Google me, you get on Google earth and look down on my house with the eyes of a god. You can see my face, yet it’s rare someone actually recognizes me in person. I do not stand out. Privacy I know only exists in my mind and yet I share it here. (whether you want it or not!!) Sometimes I think I know some stuff, but then each time I think I’m smart I realize I’m dumb. I’ve had multiple lives each chapter very different, yet variations on a theme. I am perception. I’m the person other’s think I am, and yet I’m nothing like the person they think I am. Sometimes I think I’m unique but more often than not, I realize we’re much the same. Knowing that I feel less alone, yet often I feel imprisoned in my own head. A private place. A privacy I do not seek or relish. In some way we all march the rush hour streets of New York, a face not much different than the thousands that march beside us. Each alone. Each part of a mass. I’m not sure privacy is in a name or a face. It’s not the last 4 digits of a social security card. Real privacy is that our lives, most of us, are of little consequence to most. No matter how many people know who your are, no matter how many people love you during your short time on earth, countless millions will never know you exit. Often I think we should not worry so much about privacy as we should worry about being alone. I think we spend too much time protecting ourselves, building defenses against an unknown enemy. Sure we can live in fear of damage or thievery. The more we fear, the more alone we become.
Recently archaeologists came upon a grave of two people. Their bones cuddled together as if they just laid down, looked into each others eyes with love, and died. Looking at the photo you could feel somehow voyeuristic, if you did not know they were put in that position by others. Others who knew them well. Now we will photograph and sample. We will learn their ages and frailties. We could recreate their faces, their hair, their fingers and toes. We will investigate every detail we can of two people who spent an eternity alone together below the suface of the earth. I wondered, even if I could take my privacy to the grave, how would I protect it from there? On the other hand if someone did dig me up a thousand years from now I would count it a victory if they could decern that I was loved, and never really alone.
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7 Responses to came upon a grave
Brilliant piece!
Gee, I thought you were describing me there for a while–”I’m old, I’m gray. I own very little. By western standards I am poor, by global standars I’m rich.” But, I live in a mid-sized city on a Great Lake–that’s very cold and icy at the moment. And, I’m older, grayer, and balder than you.
Interesting on the privacy–as I was reading your blog, I was monitoring a telephone conversation between one of our employees and a customer. It truly was for “quality assurance purposes”, though they didn’t know I was listening in — the employee’s supervisor had called me with a complaint about the phone service. I have no recall about what they were speaking of, nor do I care. But, I do know that the quality of the call was unacceptable. Now I need to go work some telephony magic and isolate the problem and fix it!
Anxiously awaiting the rite of Spring–Canoecopia where I will come face-to-face with some of the greatest people in the world. Among which there are more and more women. I wonder if this had been the case a few years ago, if my daughter might have stuck with sea kayaking longer? She’s only 27, so she’s young enough to take it up again, after all I didn’t start until post-40!
As far as anonymity, privacy, security goes, all we can do is guard against the obvious…to deter. No door remains locked against Determination. Where there’s profit, there’s a will. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
As for the ancient couple whose “eternal embrace” has been so rudely interrupted: At the end, I hope I’m as blessed to never endure without my wife, nor her me. Call me a romantic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baucis_and_Philemon
Jim
> “Privacy” is just word with about the
> same reality as “Service, Quality, &
> Value”
Oh so true.
Outside of my paddling life, I have a day job. I don’t just paddle for a living:-)
I was at a network security conference here in NYC. In fact a half a block from my office.
A guy was demonstrating how un-private our lives are.
He asked for a volunteer who felt his life was private.
He asked for the persons SS#(easy to get without asking).
He was able to reveal things like his sexual preference and what magazines his parents subscribed to and more…. Also many more private things that he felt he shouldn’t tell the audience.
There are companies that make it their business to keep track of every detail they can on everybody.
I saw that thread on qajaqusa, but felt it was the wrong forum to discuss this.
stevie
We are never really alone unless we choose it. Ultimately it is always up to us to invite others in, and how we do it makes all the difference.
Interesting post on Privacy, Derrick, and I see your words on QajakUSA. What makes this blog interesting is that, in the four replies to your blog, two are anonymous, one uses a moniker dreengirll, and only one uses anything possibly (but not certainly) close to his name, johnb. So if this is a survey of sentiment, at least 75% of KQuixotica bloggers choose privacy.
You make a wonderful point about not being truly “invisible” online, no matter how much we try. But you know what I say… I still lock my house and my car when I leave them. Anyone at any time can get into either. But no sense me making it easy for them.
I believe that QajaqUSA should encourage posts to their Forum by any means possible. They’d have more members and a wider audience. And interestingly, even though we all can find his real name, one of their most prominent members, Dubside, goes by a pseudonym. Go figure.
The QajaqUSA webmaster states in a truly waffling post reminiscent of why the guidline is so ambiguos, “No one is banned from GP Forum for a (moniker)”, yet I have had him post three times in three threads to please use my real name. Guess I should stick to GW Bush, Ralph Malph, Dick Cheney, or Joel Fleischman the Christian pastor as examples of how best to do it on that Forum. If I only had a two word psuedonym, like Johnny Appleseed, this would not have even come up. All I wanted to know is what happened to QajaqJapan.
I asked them kindly, since I feel differently about their policy of putting real names all over the internet, to delete my few posts and threads… they declined to do it. And I am a paying member.
Done with that Greenland schtick. Permanently.
Thanks for letting me post, as the otehrs above and 99% of all other website and blogs, under a pseudonym.
Dubside would be proud.
Hey CD! Yeah, like I said there, I don’t see the issue as long as the poster is not a problem. But it’s their sandbox, their rules.
I could care less here of course. 
oh well, lets blow my cover, I am truly the Nordkapp Princess.