Something strange has happened to the idea of privacy in our surreal time. Instead of being cherished, it appears to have become, for many people in the West, especially young people, a valueless qualityāactually undesirable. If a thing is not made public, it doesn't really exist. Your dog, your wedding, your beach, your baby, your dinner, the interesting meme you recently sawāthese things need, on a daily basis, to be shared. In India, privacy is a luxury of the rich. The poor, living in small, overcrowded spaces, are never alone. Many impoverished Indians have to perform the most private of acts, their natural bodily functions, out of doors. To have a room of one's own, one must have money. (I don't think Virginia Woolf ever went to India, but her dictum stands, even there, even for men.) Scarcity creates demand, and in the poor majority of the world, a room of one's ownāespecially for womenāis still a thing to be yearned for. But in the greedy West, where attention has become the thing most hungered for, where the quest for followers and likes is the new gluttony, privacy has become unnecessary, unwanted, even absurd. Eliza and I decided to be private people. This did not mean we kept our relationship secret. My family knew, and so did hers. Her friends knew, and so did mine. We dined out together, went to the theater, cheered at Yankees games at the Stadium, walked around art galleries, bopped at rock concerts. We led, in short, the ordinary life of New Yorkers. But we stayed off social media. I didn't "like" her, she didn't "like" me. And as a result, for five years, three months, and eleven days, we flew almost completely under the radar. Then, cutting that life apart, came the knife.
stormborns
yousharknotpass
jimmyeatworldofficial
amandla
2087
gummygunk
