Many tiny house lovers and simplicity nuts (like me) appreciate and seek out a private side of life. For years I have “jousted windmills” about privacy issues. I once walked out of a dentist office (this was probably 6 or 7 years ago) because they required my drivers license — and wanted to make a copy of it for their records — when I was a “cash pay” client.

I’ve battled people who want my SSN, but didn’t really need it — I’ve made those who asked for it PROVE that they needed it and asked for written documentation on their privacy policy before I’d sign anything or give any information. I’ve refused to allow my current doctor to take my photo for their records, I don’t sign up and answer all the questions about my life on their little tablet thingees. I often payed cash to prevent giving out my personal information and to prevent having my purchases, whereabouts and personal habits tracked.

My privacy paranoia is a problem with the work I was in for years — which was 100% Internet-based.  Now I have a brick and mortar business, but the way I work hasn’t changed much and privacy issues are still trampled by the digital world. After years and years as the privacy equivalent of Don Quixote, I’ve pretty much given up.

Unless I want to go to my cabin deep in the woods and find alternative (non-digital) means for making a living — it’s pretty much a lost cause. That bothers me, but at least I know what I’ve lost — and I know what’s required to regain some of it. What really makes me sad that the younger generations will never know how it feels to NOT be tracked every second, to NOT leave a digital foot print everywhere they go, to NOT have face recognition software identifying them as they walk down the street or enter a store,  to NOT have everything they say, write, and do recorded in the huge databases dedicated to such things.

I wish they knew what they lost — so that at least they were aware of how life used to be — and that privacy was a possible reality.

It seems such a shame to live in a tiny fish tank with four glass walls, never having known what it was like to swim wild and free in the ocean.