Privacy Please

I spent this morning at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where I thought again about Rev. Amy Freedman’s remarks on observation as a spiritual practice. But within a few minutes of entering the museum, I found my powers of concentration sorely tested.

There were people everywhere! Tourists, like me, from all over the world. Talking, moving, listening to audio guides.

I reminded myself that this should be inspiring. So many people, of different ages and nationalities, excited to look at the same works of art. Around me I heard many languages spoken. And the closeness was sort of intimate. Standing right next to me as I looked at Van Gogh’s Starry Night was a woman and her daughter. The woman leaned over, hands on her daughters shoulders, and exclaimed “Belissimo!” Later, as I stared at Robert Delaunay’s “Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon,” a man only inches behind me fixed his eyes on Marc Chagall’s “I and the Village” and gasped softly “Oh, I am in heaven.”

Still, I couldn’t completely shake the sense of crowdedness. It was magnified too by the architecture of the MOMA’s new building, which opened in 2004. The building is so much glass and open space. Walkways between the galleries seem to float in mid-air, from which one can look down into the floors below, or out across the center courtyard and into the glass offices on the other side. I could see people walking through the lower lobby, people sitting out in the main courtyard, people looking at an installation on the second floor.

This got me thinking about privacy, and the value of having a private life. While I enjoy relationships and communicating, I also treasure moments of solitude. My favorite trips to museums involve walking at my own pace, communing with a single painting for as long as I want, and not saying a word.

When I got home from the MOMA, I saw a Wall Street Journal article (” ‘Til Tech Do Us Part”) about how couples delineate personal space (or rather, fail to do so) in the digital age. The article mentioned couples who share e-mail addresses. The advantages, as presented by the interviewees, were greater trust and a greater sense of “togetherness.” The disadvantages were presented only from the perspectives of friends outside the marriage, who send one member of the couple an e-mail, only to receive an unwelcome response from the other. In short, the only disadvantage mentioned was that friends of the couple lose a sense of privacy.

What about the sense of privacy that the spouses themselves lose? The article failed to acknowledge that individuals–even married individuals!–could benefit from solitude. Now some couples might flourish while sharing e-mail addresses, but finding privacy in other aspects of their lives. I don’t argue with that.

What I want to emphasize is the value of at least occasional solitude. Our private lives are places where we can experiment with thoughts and feelings, and briefly see ourselves without the lens of another person’s reaction, either positive or negative.

At several times in life when I’ve been especially upset at a friend, I’ve tried the old recommendation to write a letter I’ll never send. These letters have been incredibly helpful to me. It has been a relief to write them, to have the feelings out on paper. And I still often think back to the conclusions I have come to in those letters. Never mind that I didn’t send those letters; I received them.

In relationships, we do a different kind of experimenting, one that allows us enjoy affirmation from one another. That’s essential. But it’s also necessary to draw a line around some pieces of our lives that are private, to stake places to experiment with our thoughts and beliefs, to get to know ourselves anew and with a freedom that can only be found in solitude.