It's about freedom. Don't willingly surrender control of your life to another human, or human agency. You've come too far for that now. If you give it away, you lose your identity.
When we are born, we have no identity. Specialists in human development refer to having no ego boundaries. We are the world, and the world is us. If we hunger, the whole universe is hungry. In the lives of most infants -- in the Western world at least -- that hunger is rather quickly met with food. Eventually, we realize that food is given by a parent. At first, we see parents as extensions of ourselves. When we get old enough to do some things for ourselves, these parents no longer rise to our every whimper. Soon enough, they even start using that awful word "no" in response to our desires.
At first, the discovery and acquisition of ego boundaries is quite painful. The realization that our desires are not the same for all of our little world comes as quite a shock. Indeed, the lesson may require years before it really takes hold. Ever read the disappointment in the face of a six-year-old when their best friend doesn't want to play along with the script for "let's pretend"? How about when that same child tells you that the puppy loves being tossed into the air? From our adult perspective, it's clear to us the child loves it, but for the puppy it's doubtful. The fancy term for seeing the world as a mirror of your own desires is called projection. The study of human development indicates that somewhere around age 12, if not before, we hope that people learn to accept the world, more or less, without projection. Experience tells us very few adults are not afflicted with some projection problem of one kind or another.
On the way to properly holding projection in check we must cross another threshold around age 5. At that point, we begin to worship our parents less as deities, and begin seeking role models outside the immediate family. If we are very fortunate, our parents won't let us be exposed to just any old cultural slop. Modeling ourselves after uncivilized idiots is not a very good idea. Of course, out of convenience or misguided zeal for false openness, most parents today don't even filter their own cultural consumption, much less that of their children. Still, this period is crucial to whatever development takes place, as we differentiate who and what we are from mere shadows of our parents. When it works as it should, by age 10 a child will have a solid sense of privacy.
It's at this age we should expect children to show a reluctance to let us barge into their private space, and they will start having "secrets" from parents. They will exhibit embarrasment at having things exposed they thought private. From then on, being "old enough" for this or that can't come soon enough. Parents who are insensitive or hostile to this will leave scars on a child's emotions. The neuroses connected to such scars are the stuff of psychoanalysis. It's not a matter of simply letting the kids get by with anything; that's even worse. Rather, it's a matter of sensitivity, taking the time to explain necessary intrustions, and even negotiating at times. One of the greatest sins here is hypocrisy: demanding the children respect your privacy to the utmost, while acting as if they couldn't possibly have any use for their own.
Privacy is first hallmark of identity. Our sense of self, our ability to interact with the world as a free agent, assumes a certain amount of privacy. It's those ego boundaries. We have a certain amount of our lives within our control, and we carry the responsibility that goes with it. Two sides to the same issue: control and responsibility. People without responsibility are still part infant, holding an expectation that their desires are inherently right, and there is no one else to consider. People without that sense of control over their lives are simply not human, but machines. We need both to be complete, to be sane, to be real people. Who surrenders one, surrenders both. They seek to return to infancy.
There is only one place where we rightly drop those ego boundaries. It's called "love." If we fall in love, the boundaries go "splat" and we are love-struck teenagers. The world is beautiful, and it becomes impossible to sate our desire for our beloved's presence. The fancy word for that affliction is cathexis. It's not really being in love with a person, but in love with being in love. By their nature, those boundaries will eventually snap back into place; cathexis wears off. Then we find ourselves stuck in the most improbable romances. If we love by choice, by an act of will because of who and what we are, we can extend our ego boundaries sensibly to include that other. In this we retain the full right to set the limits. It is wholly voluntary.
When a corporate or government agency demands a chunk of your privacy, they remove your power to carry responsibility. There's nothing of love in that. It's an attack on your sense of self, your identity. You are somehow at that point less than an adult. When the people in power refuse in turn to accept responsibility for that loss of privacy, we are enslaved just a bit. When these same powerful figures demand we not intrude on their privacy, or that of their office, they are like children. They demand that we play by their personal script, giving them control, because their need is our need.
When we decide we are through being children, we'll put a stop to this nonsense. If we throw a fit, we are no better than those seeking to be our masters. As good parents, we should gently but firmly demand for ourselves what is ours.
Ed Hurst
31 March 2004
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