JMO - Absence

You know the old sayings, "Absences makes the heart grow fonder.", and "How can I miss you if you never go away?" Well, it seems to me there simply is too much interpersonal communication and not enough simple privacy anymore. It's about being yourself away from everyone else and not always wanting, let alone needing, human contact every moment of the day.

But it seems the technology and social networking companies are pushing the opposite. You can't sneeze without telling someone through instant messaging (and believe me they'll invent the iPhone app to detect sneezes) and someone saying, "Geshundheit!" in return. Like you don't have enough people around you saying it? You need people miles away saying it?

It's not like the companies already know more about you that you know about yourself.

Google tracks everything you do with them and more.

The NSA listens to telephone traffic and watches the Internet traffic of everyone through the telecommunications companies.

Your ISP records all your e-mail, browser history and the like.

The on-line companies you buy from keep records of your purchases and share your purchasing interests with other companies (for a fee of course, profitting off of you).

Your computer is storing everything you do, and hackers are potentially stealing it along with your identity and files.

The FBI can exercise a sneak and peek warrant and implant real-time monitoring and transmitting equipment in your computer to watch your computer work.

All that and now you can share it with the world, friends, family, co-workers, and so on and even people you never met, will ever meet or know, and probably wouldn't even share a beer with if you ever met them. Why?

I'm not against sharing. Your work, your life, your love, and even your passions, interests and values. But where does it end and you need to simply unplug away from it all, and then to find you're still plugged into the world by your absence. Even not communicating anymore is communicating, but then you'll be asked why you're not communicating.

I wont' suppose in the future, if it hasn't already happened, we'll communicate memorial services by PDA or cellphone, talking of the deceased like they're on-line with us, but only missed because they're not replying anymore. Have we forgotten, death is our final message, and we do that alone?

And all the technology and communications won't change that or our feelings about them. It doesn't need technology, only simple human communications. Ourselves just being ourselves, our heart, mind, soul and spirit. Nothing else, nothing added, and nothing subtracted.

You don't need technology for that, and it's all about what's private in yourself, something no body can take or steal.