On Sunday’s, our small town hosts a Farmer’s Market, it is small but beloved. About a dozen farmers and soap makers and bakers come to the small park in the middle of town. For some years, the market languished, we worried if the market could make it. But this year, it is experiencing a substantial revival.
The Round House Cafe has re-opened just a few yards away, and a new brewery, the Argyle brewery, has opened a branch on the other side of the park. The market seems to be booming this year, and the fruit and produce are amazing. We go there every Sunday to buy bread, have some almond croissants for breakfast, maybe get a Round House pizza for dinner.
We often see friends there and Red and Gus are a big hit. I brought my new lens on Sunday and was drawn to this beautifully arranged farm booth, and the beautiful zinnias in the basket. Maria got a bunch to bring home. The light was tricky, the sun was on the flowers but the farmer and his daughter were in shadow. Turned out to be just right for this temperamental lens.
Red and I went to the dentist this morning, I needed to have a cavity filled. I always call and ask if I should bring Red – I don’t generally bring my dogs everywhere I go – and they always say yes. Red is much loved there, and the staff is disappointed when I don’t bring him.
There is not much therapy work for him to do there, so he receives some therapy instead. When I go into the dentist’s cubicle, Red lies down in the hallway just outside, he can hold court and keep an eye on me and also get some loving from a steady parade of staffers. He loves it there, he loves loving and being loved.
He does not ever move from the cubicle where I am, but everyone in the offices comes to find him and sit with him.
Red is a remarkable animal, he has a striking affect on people. It is a pleasure to have a dog so many people love, and Red appreciates being loved. Sometimes, the therapy dog needs therapy.
I thank Cambridge Family Dental for e-mailing me this photo after I got home.
Personal Space: Roughly defined as a one foot radius around a person. It can only be entered by close friends, family members, significant others, etc. You know when you’re in a person’s personal space. – The Urban Dictionary
Last Saturday, I had a long list of chores to do, and Maria and I had to meet a friend at a local cafe. We had a lot of trash to dispose of, and we were busy for much of the day, and I didn’t get to the blog until later at night.
I went to put up a photograph around 8 p.m., and I was surprised to see a Facebook message from a name I did not know or recognize: “it’s unusual,” Dana wrote,”that you have not posted anything today. I’m just checking in to see if everything is okay. Perhaps you are just taking a much-needed break.”
I winced at this message. Did I really have to explain to a total stranger that I was busy that morning, was it really anyone else’s business? My mother did that to me all the time when I failed to call her often enough. Is everything all right? You must be sick or in trouble, or you would have called me? I didn’t like it then either.
I saw a second message from Maria, who was traveling to upstate New York on her vacation. “My boyfriend and I are going to Sartoga for a long weekend starting 8/24,” she wrote, “I was wondering if we could come by and meet your family.” A third person messaged Maria that same day, a reader said she was also heading to the area for her family vacation and planned to stop by and meet us and the animals. She said she hoped the visit would not be too disruptive.
Another message was from a woman who was unhappy that I was using a new lens with a softer focus. “I don’t like the softer focus,” she said, “I much prefer the lenses you were using.” She was one of a number of people who didn’t like the new lens. And who told me about it as I struggled to figure out how I could make it work.
Although the third message was more presumptuous, all three messages were polite and at a glance. They were from nice people who all said they liked my work and Maria’s work and just wanted to meet us or know if I was all right. It is hard to argue there is anything wrong with that, people often find me too sensitive or unreasonable.
That night, I wrote about the impact of unwanted advice and messages from strangers that presumed to be intimate with me, or to approach me as close friends and family might. I wrote about creative people and the process of creativity, and their vulnerability.
William Benson messaged me right away: “When you post on social media, you are essentially “running it up the flagpole” to see who salutes. Not everyone will. It doesn’t change the fact that you were the one who “put it out there” where it will be judged–like it or not. If you don’t want controversy, don’t put it out there. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. And so what?”
I would say Mr. Benson’s message is the view of many millions of people on social media, who now have access to almost everyone in the world and thus presume the right to offer unsolicited advice or commentary or to let me know they are dropping by or to ask me why I haven’t posted on my blog for a few hours, as if that are things they have a right to say or ask or know.
I’m supposed to just suck it up, according to Mr. Benson. He believes that if a creative person posts a photograph on his blog, or a painting or a poem, then he is “asking for it,” and courting trouble, just like a woman who wears a beautiful dress to a college party. Since I “put it out there,” I am automatically inviting controversy, and if I don’t want that, then it goes without saying I should just shut up and find some other work.
I do not compare myself to them, but I’ve read a lot of memoirs of great writers – John Updike, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Connor, Joan Didion – and none of them ever described the kind of hazing ritual Mr. Benson tells me is inevitable in our time and that comes with being creative. They all wrote eloquently of the need for creative people to have a sense of distance and space in their heads, where else would their creativity come from? Surely not by exchanging notes on Facebook Messenger.
On social media, it is widely accepted that if one chooses to live an open or examined life, then one forgoes any right to privacy or even civility. Any stranger is thus granted the right to say anything he or she pleases, the writer or artist accepts a world without boundaries, manners, courtesy or privacy, or just goes away, a whine-ass deserving of anything he gets.
In Mr. Benson’s new world, and the world of many others, people like me no longer have the right to put our work “out there” without expecting it to be attacked, and the people “out there” have every right to make suggestions, expect intimacies, or offer criticisms. What, after all, do I expect? And so what?
This is a very new way to look at the loss of respect and dignity and privacy, that’s what, and I found it was troubling me through the weekend, as it often has, and yet I didn’t quite have a name for it.
Until today.
The idea of personal space is commonly discussed among therapists and counselors and social workers. It is usually used to define a physical boundary between one person or another. In the presidential debates, it appeared to some that Donald Trump frequently entered the personal space of Hillary Clinton in order to make her uncomfortable, which she later said was just what happened. Many victims of sexual assault or other kinds of intimidation refer to the sense of being invaded by people who get too close to them, and enter their intimate space.
This violation is what I feel so often, and write about.
Social media has obliterated any notion of a personal space, Millions of people violate the space of other people every day by presuming closeness, getting too close, acting in boorish, hostile, rude and inappropriate dialogues that would be considered unacceptable face-to-face or in someone’s home.
There is a stalker who has been invading my space for years in an especially hostile and harassing kind of way, rather than prosecute or assault her, which a lawyer urged me to do, I learned not to care about her or think about her, and she lost her sting and went away. I suppose that is the challenge here. But that is the bittersweet challenge for the victims of harassment or violations of space, or of assault. In order to survive, they must learn not to feel, they must deaden themselves rather than feel alive.
My blog and social media pages are my home online, and I believe no one has the right to say things to me or violate my personal space and dignity there any more than they would sitting on my porch or my living room. No one would ever walk up to me in my house, and say, “hey, I hated the photo you put up today. I don’t like it, I prefer you used a different lens.” No stranger would ever walk up to me on the street and say, “hey, I tried to call you yesterday but you weren’t home. Where were you?”
That would be the last contact we would have, yet online people are furious at me for objecting to be treated in this way. In the new ethics, everyone is a movie star, everyone is fair game. But this week, I learned a lot about myself.
This morning, I got a message from A via e-mail, she wrote: “Dear Jon, Unsolicited opinions are violations of personal space for those whose sensitivities are highly attuned and perhaps conditioned by events. As a writer and a person living “the examined life,” how could it be otherwise for you? It seems to me that with your public blog, you are doing calisthenics, and I am in awe of your stamina and commitment.”
I do have a lot of stamina and commitment. And my work and photography requires that my sensibilities are very attuned, and often conditioned by events.
But I know so many younger and more fragile people – including many women (more than men), and many creatives and wannabe creatives – who don’t have a lot of stamina. I have met and spoken with hundreds of people, including many talented students, who are afraid to publish blogs, share their images or poems or stories online in any public way because of these kinds of violations and the “you’re asking for it argument:” If you put yourself out there, you are asking for it and deserve it.
The loss of the work and thinking and energy of these people is incalculable and in many ways, a cultural tragedy, especially on the medium that was supposed to make ideas and information free. It ought not require stamina and commitment to speak freely and openly or creatively on a blog or anywhere on the Internet. Or anywhere else.
A put her finger on it. It bothers me every time my personal space is invaded.
When people forcing advice and opinions on me that I do not seek or want. When people feel they have the right to know what I am doing for a few hours if I don’t blog. Or presume to demand of me the rituals of family. Who enter my personal space without thought or consideration.
They threaten creativity by offering criticisms and comments that would, in any personal context, be considered rude and inappropriate.
Facebook promotes the idea that we are all friends. But friends don’t force unwanted advice on other friends. They don’t invade the personal space of other people by presuming intimacies. They don’t assume they can come and meet our families because they are passing through, as if we have no work or privacy to consider. They bother me because they feel like violations of my space.
I have made many true friendships that stem from my work online. They take time, consideration and respect. Facebook doesn’t get to anoint them with an emoticon. Knowing someone on Facebook Messenger doesn’t entitle people to send messages tha say, “hi, how are you doing this morning?”
Facebook Messenger maybe the most disturbing and invasive assault on personal space since humans learned to speak and be greedy.
I must admit that in my early life, I suffered greatly and terrifyingly from people who invaded my personal space and then more. I realize that I get disturbed when I feel my personal space is violated, I recognize this as a trauma reflex, and this happens so often that i only rarely mention it or write about it.
This observation about personal space has awakened me a bit, and helped me to understand myself in a deeper and fuller way, I see the ways in which I have been damaged and still bleed, and I understand why these wounds are re-opened a thousand times a week. It does take stamina, doesn’t it.
And I certainly never think of quitting. Or shutting up.
Quite the contrary, I hope this discussion helps other people to affirm themselves and learn to be strong. Because respect for personal space is not a widely-held ethos on social media or the messaging systems of the Internet. If we are to keep this sacred space, we must demand it and fight for it ourselves, facing off against the vast hordes of people who think we are asking for trouble if we speak openly and honestly about our lives.
That is something worth fighting against.
So I’m especially grateful for A, who understands this idea and respects it and put a name on it that I never thought of. It helps me to understand myself better and hopefully, to grow. It does require calisthenics I suppose, this is a new way for me to see it.
It is simple to underestimate the instincts and capabilities of small dogs, but it is also a mistake, I’m learning. I always assumed that Gus, a small dog, still a puppy (he will get bigger by about half) would want nothing to do with the sheep, and that they would want nothing to do with him.
It is a mistake to stereotype living things, people or animal. Gus is evolving. He is no longer afraid of the sheep, although he is quite alert around them, quick to get out of their way. He is studying the border collies closely, especially Red, and he is beginning to move with Red when he moves the sheep.
He is also getting comfortable sitting near the sheep. Twice, he has stepped in front of them to challenge them, holding his ground, even stopping them. Usually he steps out of the way when they lower their heads to warn him off. This morning, he stood quite still while they ran at full speed right round him.
It is becoming clear that he is studying the other dogs, running with them, watching them closely. I don’t know how far he will take this, or how far he can. We are leaving him to figure out by himself what he wants to do and what he can do. He loves Red and Fate he loves to hang out with them and I believe he is toying with working with the sheep.
I want to leave this alone. It may go no farther, it might go farther from time to time. Gus is not a herding dog, he does not posess those innate instincts, but he is a confident dog, he is sometimes cautious but very rarely afraid. The first time a helicopter came over, he was anxious, the second time he ignored it.
This will be fun to watch. I have no fears for Gus’s safety, he can take care of himself, and I have no interest or ego in pushing this farther than it will naturally go. Today Gus took off with Red when he went to round up the sheep, and Gus seemed pleased with himself when the two of them moved the sheep out of the barn. I don’t know if he had a hand in that, I couldn’t tell.
He certainly has a fine teacher in Red if he wants to learn something about sheep. He watches Red intently.
It will be interesting to see how far Gus wants to go, I have never encouraged this behavior or offered him any training direction or reinforcement. He’s fine just the way he is. I do love seeing where dogs take themselves when humans stay out of it.
Gus tortures Red while he works. Red does not blink or waver
The longer I know Red, the more I admire him. Gus came over and started chewing on Red’s head this morning while he was giving the sheep the eye. Red is the Zen Master of dogs, he never blinked, moved or took his eyes off of the sheep, I took mercy on him and told him to move up, and he did, and Gus went to bother Fate.
Gus tries to rattle Red every morning now, and get him to play. Red is unmoveable and undistractable. He is the man. I can’t imagine herding sheep while a small dog was chewing on my head.
