Day 29 Private is as Private Does; or, MYOB

I have asserted before, and no doubt, will again that Mary Engelbreit never lets me down. Today’s page-a-day adage is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Now, contrast that with these scenarios please.

A woman, living in Staten Island, knows that her father in Virginia has life-threatening cancer. Her heart is calling her to Virginia. Two friends call her and read her the riot act about leaving her home and putting others at risk.

A man, living in Vermont, knows that his two nonagenarian aunts in Sedona are in need of daily assistance. His heart is calling him to Arizona. He emails a friend for advice. That friend, who happened to be me, said, “Go.”

I wakened this morning with a picture in my mind of a timeline like we used to see in seventh grade Social Studies. Remember those? At the far left was the word COVID-19. At the far right was the word FUTURE.

The advancement along the bar was miniscule, barely visible.

Beloved, we’ve only just begun to deal with this virus and its fallout. And do not for even one moment think that I doomsay when I write this. That is, like it or not, pure fact. We are at the very beginning of an Alpine learning curve. Maybe one step onto the road to true, complete recovery.

A caption in The New York Times this morning read, “... ultimately, there can be no global victory without success in the United States.”

Former U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, wrote an article entitled, “This Won’t End for Anyone Until It Ends for Everyone.”

I want to give you a heads-up about what’s to come in this essay, Beloved. I’m about to write of a difficult subject, one that polarizes people instantly. Before I do, I would ask that you put both feet on the floor, get grounded, exhale hard, and let the inhale sooth you. Now, lay on, Macduff.

Privacy is in the forefront of the news almost daily. Truth be told, it has been since a lot of us realized that if the product is free, we are the product. This is code. It means that whatever apps, programs, access to the Internet we use, we are the suppliers of the data that is used to make decisions, change laws, and, by those less scrupulous than you and me, manipulate us.

Data is a macro approach to information. We all recognize language querying how big was the data set in order to validate said data. Privacy in the macro-world of data is a long lost dream. If you have a smartphone, you’re part of the data. Remember that the primary social media metric is “Likes.” Very personal, that. Click there, and you’re saying, “I Like This.”

Likes are personal, not private. The issue I address this morning is much more nuanced than macro data and its adherents ever will be. I want us to look at personal, micro privacy. The privacy that most of us, in free countries, take for granted.

Private is private, isn’t it? Is it? I’m not so sure any more. I’m pretty sure that my choices, whether I’d like them to be or not, are mine until they touch one other soul, and then the nature of the privacy changes, doesn’t it? Then, privacy is as privacy does.

Kansas’ Democratic Governor Laura Kelly signed an executive order to ban all gathering of ten or more people. The Republican-led state senate repealed it. “... don’t tell us we can’t practice our religious freedoms.” “At a news conference, [the Governor] denounced lawmakers for reversing the order, calling it a “shockingly irresponsible decision that will put every Kansan’s life at risk.”

Were they following their hearts? Or were they making a political ‘gotcha’ point? No one will ever know—except each one who voted to risk the lives of Kansans.

It is just this setting one against another that makes for such frustration. And such fear. At the level of governance, I do not see that there is anything to be done about it, except to vote as safely as we can.

This is the result of the constant undermining of the news. We don’t know what’s true or what’s not. We don’t know who to trust. Not outside of each one of us we don’t.

That’s why I’m with Times Editorial Board Member, Michelle Cottle. She wrote a blistering piece a few days ago called, “Drop the Curtain on the Trump Follies.” I almost stood up in front of my computer screen and cheered. In it, she called the media into account for giving the joke, known in other circles as daily White House briefings, airtime, column inches, and even brain space.

It will not surprise you that I think there is a deeper way to look at privacy, a way for the actual practice of personal privacy to yield good results as well as personal satisfaction. Privacy is an inside job, Beloved.

Because we cannot trust completely the information that comes from outside us, we have no choice, really, but to take each idea that’s presented and hold it against the inner bell that we all have. That Inner Bell, call it conscience, call it Jiminy Cricket, call it heart, will not steer us wrong unless we manipulate it.

“Wear a mask when you go out.”
“Don’t wear a mask when you go out.”

Test them. Pull each idea into your own heart to find out what’s essential for you.

There is a daily column in the Arts section of The Times called “How much watching time do you have?” Every time I see it, I say to myself, “None.” We don’t watch television at Cupcake Manor—the name of the house where I live. [Full disclosure: we do, occasionally, stream things on the computer, but there is no television front and center in any room of the house.]

When I say to the columnist, “None,” there’s usually a follow-up. “I have no watching time because what I’m actually doing instead is living.”

It upsets me that we have become a nation of watchers, and not liv-ers. We don’t need to watch life. We are not called to that. We are called, collectively and individually, to live the lives we have been given. The easiest way to do that is MYOB.

Yes, I mean it. Mind. Your. Own. Business. Or, the business of your own life, Beloved.

If we would stop minding the business of the lives of others, we just might find that we have the time, the focus, the energy, the ability, and the willingness to use our own lives to make that difference we all say we want to make.

Now let’s go back to Staten Island, and ask some hard questions, shall we?

Did those friends of the woman in Staten Island listen for her heart? Did they even attempt to see rightly? Did they look at a daughter aching to be able to help her father? Did they ask themselves what was essential here? What was invisible?

Or were they minding her business in a way that they shouldn’t have been? I think it was the latter. She ended up saying, “I’m not sure I can go back to being friends with them.” So sad.

Allison Arieff writing as pure inspiration in “The Magic of Empty Streets” says, “Ultimately, what we really need to figure out is how the world gets put back together. Our new Covid-19 reality shows that behavior can change. It is also, however, making it glaringly apparent how poorly existing systems (and places) have been working for most. Time and tragedy create opportunity — in this case an opportunity to make them work for all.”

Surely, Beloved, we all know that we have time, and we have tragedy right now. We also, each, have a heart that we can choose to use to see rightly—if we’ll take that split second required to connect to its wisdom, and hear that inner bell of truth.

Remember, what is really essential is invisible to the eye, but can be seen inerrantly through the eyes of the heart if we’ll bother to look through them. Where would you click to Like that.?

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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