My recent focus of attention on the way Facebook uses NON-Facebook-related personal information to sell advertising (i.e., make money off of my personal information about me and my friends) has caused a lot of internal conversation. But, this morning I was able to see a clear distinction between what fundamentally constitutes public versus private.
The bottom line is this: the only absolutely personal information is that which I store within my own mind...the memory that is stored and the thoughts that I think about them. That's it. This is the only 100% guaranteed personal information. Period.
As soon as I have shared this personal information in any form whatsoever external to my mind's thought form, I have moved the personal into a world with public access. I have been running on the faulty assumption that shared information can remain fundamentally personal. It doesn't...because the only information that remains fundamentally personal is that which never leaves the boundaries of my internal thoughts and memories.
And, the parallel truth to this is the fact that once I have made a choice to release my personal information into the external (i.e., the world of public access), all information is up for negotiation of one form or another.
Shared personal information is tricky business, indeed!
If I write my personal thoughts in a journal, it is personal information, but it is held within a public form that needs to be respected as personal by every other person in the world in order to remain personal. But this does not always happen...diaries are all too often read by people who were never given permission to read them.
The same is true with "private" conversations. I can have what I consider to be an exclusive conversation (or experience) between me and another person, but I have still made this information or experience accessible by the public world, so I must "trust" other people to respect my boundaries of privacy...which is precisely the problem.
Shared information or experiences create multiple guardians of the boundary around the information/experience...and everyone must agree to the same rules of protection in order for information (or experience) can remain personal.
I am never going to agree with the rules by which social media plays...and they are clearly not playing by my rules.
I no longer believe that information released into the world of public access can be protected as personal....because I live in a world where the boundaries of privacy have exploded to a point that the only safeguards that exist to protect my personal privacy is to NEVER let it leave the terrain of internally stored thoughts and memories. Period.
As nauseating as this fact is, every single word I speak and write becomes publically shared information into the world of public access. Well, fine. Knowing this fact empowers me to make choices more wisely. BUT...this fact does not mean (or can not be reasonably extrapolated to mean) that this "publically shared" information becomes part of the Public Domain!
Social media has taken the liberty of redefing personal information stored in a publically accessible form as public domain...free to be used in whatever way they can make the most money!
Just because I have shared internally private thoughts into the world of public access does not mean that it does not remain personal!
My diary retains its personal rights...my created art retains its personal rights...and, certainly, anything that I store onto my personal storage devices (thumb drives, personal computers/tablets, and smart phones) should also retain its personal rights....yet, social media has completely erased all boundaries around this personal information!
Cogito ergo sum.
I am thinking back to my intro philosophy course, and Descartes' powerful insight...cogito ergo sum...I think, therefore, I am. For René Descates, this truth meant that a person can prove their existence by and through the awareness of their thoughts...powerful stuff, indeed.
But he may have been more right than he ever could have possibly known, because this morning's clarification of the definitive fundamental boundary between public and personal remains one's ability think internally, privately, in solitude and exclusion of every other human being on earth...because this is the only realm where one truly exists in unnegotiated wholeness.
I think, therefore I am whole and completely in control of my personal information and experience.
I don't know what that would look like in Latin...lol...but I do know what it feels like within my being. And I, for one, will become a much better guardian of my own personal information.
