So, you’re the one. The one who doesn’t care what people think about them.

I want you to know something. I believe you.

Did you just decide life is too short to be anyone but yourself? Did you start to

realize that no one’s opinion is any more important than any one else’s?

Still, how do you explain to yourself the fact that you do value the opinion of your

friends and family? And how is it that you regret sharing too much of yourself

with people sometimes? I’d like you to look a few situations with me.

It’s well documented that with the advent of modern media, almost nothing is private

anymore. Your gas station has video of you from 5 years ago, your grandmother spends two hours

a week observing Nick and Jessica’s marriage, and your high school boyfriend leaves

comments on your blog. Oh the moment your children want to know about anything -

they know about it.  For your sake, I want to remind you that everything private is

public.
There are a lot of good writers out there. But most of them experience an apprehension

when they put pen to paper. It’s performance anxiety, and it’s completely justified.

They imagine an audience, whether it’s one person or one million people. And perhaps

they, much like you, don’t care what the other people think.

I love my cousin. We have a great time together - we can laugh for hours upon hours,

and do that for days upon days. She is wonderful. And when we are out together, we

have a blast just as openly as we do in the privacy of home. If other people get

involved, that’s very cool, and if they don’t, we don’t even notice. But I have to admit

that the very presence of 3 or 4 bystanders gives me a feeling that we are being seen

and heard. Still, we rarely if ever adjust our behavior for their sakes.

Unfortunately for me, I do care what others think. I always have and I make no apology

for it. I believe whole-heartedly in Coolley’s looking-glass self and I value the perspective of

anyone who has walked in shoes other than mine. Sometimes when I am thinking about

my behaviors, I feel intruded upon, as though my thoughts are never really private. I

worry about what a therapist or a relative would say about the conclusions I’ve come to

about myself.

That’s been pretty destructive. I’ve decided I’m not interested in having children, and that

that’s healthy. I have the experience and reasoning abilities to know what doesn’t appeal to me,

and the self-awareness to know why. But no one else seems to be quite as aware of me.

Still, I call friends and family and ask them what they think. Or I tell them proudly, and

gauge their reactions. When I was younger, their opinions would easily change my mind.

Now, it just makes me feel misunderstood. They are uninformed, they don’t know me,

even if they know everything about me.

That is the most revelatory example I have of the total loss of intimacy I and society-at-large have

embraced.

Should I call you when I have something important going on? The answer is, probably not. Not

unless I’m prepared to lose that exact amount of intimacy with my own thoughts. There will be a

divide, however undetectable, when I make a revelation to you. Not because I care or don’t care what

you think. But because I’ve compromised and exposed my relationship with myself.

My cousin Laura and I share such love and enjoyment when we are together. When other people

see - even if we won’t include them - we are sharing something of ours. I believe the entertaining

nature of it is such that we have plenty of it to give. But if we got a negative reaction, we would

notice. We’ve been lucky so far.

But I think the saddest victim of publicity is the artist.

They’ve lost the relationship. The one-on-one real trust between artist and art. The art is always

thankful to the artist, always perfect. It needed to be said or drawn or molded.  Its identity is

precious and one of a kind, and the artist acknowledges and credits the art in a way no one else does.

It is loved just as it is, and for that it loves its creator back. They are in an intimate, loving relationship.

The whole situation is so lovely, it seems a shame not to share it with everyone.

But you can’t take a place that love is, and let people know all about it. Because as I’ve said, no

matter how perfectly they know about it, they do not know it, and they will never, ever know it.

It is not misunderstanding or inappropriate reaction that makes the media revolution dangerous.

It’s the curious poke of a pin trying to force its way in to the party, that makes the balloon and

the air no longer able to rely on one another as they once did in such security.

I hope you are willing to go back and seek out that thing with which you were once an equal partner.

I hope you find yourself able to reclaim the ease with which you once didn’t care what others thought.

I hope you can rebuild a relationship for the sake of the intimate relationship, and for nothing else.

And I hope that you can find asylum there, and new respect for what it is you lost.