panopticon, ii

Are you still watching me? Do you still care?

I've been talking to that guy we both used to hang out with again--you know, the beating heart of our little social circle, the one who convinced me I was adventurous? Back when I was interesting and unhappy instead of just unhappy. He's just as much of a recluse as me, now. And he's got me thinking of the old days.

I never cared who was watching then, but everything I did became a story. (Why else do you think we dated for, what, three weeks? That story--I could tell that story a thousand times and it would never get old.) And you know me well enough to know that "story" is more than just a collection of words with some characters and a plot if you're lucky. It's social media, it's conversation. You can tell a story with a shrug if you do it right. But the real, the important thing, is that story is art, and art is truth.

I'm getting off track again. He put it like this: back then we didn't really think about who was watching. So we documented everything about our lives because the performance of it, the theater of it, was an art form (or, yes, a truth form). "We tried to be interesting and adventurous because those were the stories I wanted to tell. Needed to tell." And that's true. I crept into the subway tunnels after hours with you because I wanted to tell that story. I stood there huddled up against you in those little cut-outs as that maintenance train went by because I needed to be that person.

That probably makes it sound disingenuous. I can already imagine the face you're making. Listen, the whole point of living, the whole reason we both loved this fucker so much, is that performance is real, that art is truth. So we explored those tunnels and made out in that grate under . . . fuck, was it Copley? . . . we did that because we're the sort of people who did that. Because it was exciting. And we told people about it because that's how we thought we made things real.

I guess in a sense we always invited the world to watch us. The difference now is I know who's watching, and I'm not sure I want to perform that life for them. I started caring. That's the point, of course, of panopticon. It's not about catching you doing something wrong, it's about stopping you from ever doing them. It's about encouraging "correct" behavior.

I remember once, when we were both a little drunk and you were kissing my neck or fondling my tits or something and I was just talking about all this bullshit, and I said something like "I think the best plays are the ones no one ever sees," and you probably just nodded or made a kind of grunting noise because neither of us was interested in what the other was selling. "I think there's beauty in obscurity. Beauty and freedom." The idea was that everything would be better if no one was watching (and that I'm somehow even more pretentious when I'm drunk).

And here's the thing. The reason I bring this all up again. I miss it. I miss the adventure, I miss trying to be interesting. (I don't miss pretending sex was fun but sometimes I miss telling stories of sloppy kisses and dorks like you feeling me up like you're twelve.) But I was wrong then: we don't need to be obscure to be free. We just need to stop caring.

See, people think it's cops or threat of force that keeps society from going nuts, but really it's society that does that. We're all each other's jailers. And the only thing hiding does for us is it lets them win--and "they" is everyone. We weren't just kids trying to be cool back then. That's what I finally figured out. We were rebels against some power structure so deeply entrenched most of us don't even know it's there.

I'd say I hope you're doing well but we both know that's not really true. I'd have been in touch long ago if that were the case. But I do hope you're doing interesting.

panopticon

I remember back when Twitter was new and exciting, how much I loved shouting into that void. How it felt like it was part of something bigger and better than anything before, how you could just be connected to everyone all the time--with nothing more than your shitty Nokia brick phone, no less. It saw use in the protests in Iran in 2009, and elsewhere, when the stakes were far lower, it helped me, broke as hell and stranded at the airport, feel slightly less alone as some stranger in San Francisco talked to me and tried to get me a ride home. (Are you reading this, stranger? I still think of you sometimes.)

I don't have much to say anymore. (I didn't then, either, but back then I said it anyway, to anyone who would listen, to borrow a phrase.) It's no longer remarkable that anyone could talk to anyone at any time from anywhere--it is, indeed, remarkable when that can't happen. Did I ever tell you about the time we booked what we thought was a bed and breakfast out in the middle of nowhere? And we drove for what seemed like forever down some sketchy back road and ended up someplace with no cell phone service, and no food, and not even the bottle of cider they promised would come with it? It was a rough fucking night for a lot of reasons, made so much worse by the fact that we couldn't even tell anyone about it.

It's part of our lives now: we can access anybody and anything at any time. And anyone else can access us, too. Hell, I can still remember a time that the only reason to apologize for sending someone a message late at night is because you were incoherent due to alcohol or sleep deprivation. Now it might wake someone up. We take it with us into our fucking dreams. Some part of us knows that it's a mistake. That everything we do is logged and sold, that privacy is an illusion, that when a service is free it means that we're the product, not the customer. But we let it in anyway. And we did it on purpose, because the ability to make a stranger feel less alone from 3000 miles away feels like it's worth it.

Maybe it is. But the longer I hold out on getting a smartphone, the deeper I sink into my self-imposed isolation, the more I wonder if it's not just another lie we're telling ourselves, another example of the mechanisms of surveillance trying to perpetuate themselves by selling us on all their benefits. I'm at my happiest when it's all out of my reach, when the world can't find me and there's no more void to shout into.