Name The Problems With Transparency

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I’m thinking about life, my life in particular (since we bloggers are given over to narcissism), and I’m thinking about transparency and shame.  I’m trying to figure out something: is it more important to be or seem to be.  And obviously, it’s more important to be a certain way.  I used to regard privacy and control over my environment as about the most important thing possible.  I used to conceal much information from everyone around me, wife, parents, clients.

Recently, it was pointed out to me that that was all cover for boorish and narcissistic behavior on my part.  I wanted latitude to act however I wanted, and privacy and personal rights were (for me) a cover for that.  “How dare you eaves drop, how dare you try to know something about me.”   Shine some light on what I do, and I do it differently.  Have a standard that’s higher, and I change my behavior.   If everyone got to see how I was acting, would I do it that way?

Growing up, my family worshiped at the church of respectability.  My parents wanted to seem great.  I was to get in the dean’s list not because it signified any real achievement (high school is ridiculous, and it makes you accept unreason, and conditions you to be a docile lamb of an employee, I was not destined for that).   I was there to validate the family.  Or that’s how it felt.  I know that my folks want/wanted what’s good for me for the most part.   Being good, being loyal wasn’t as important as presenting a good public face.   Funny thing is, when you’re concerned with your public face alone, your wind up all Tiger Woods, and that stuff eventually gets revealed.

The perspective changed when I started looking at my behavior.  Being a dad, saying, “would you be proud if this what what your kid did?”  Nobody’s perfect, but that changes what you do on a daily basis.  Changes how you behave, how you act.  Do you want to set a good example for your kid?  Then you pick the right things to spill blood over and don’t charge the matador’s cape. Being, rather than seeming becomes a focus, and it’s more humbling.  I know endless people that are all bluster and bullshit and they want to seem like they are moral.  Being moral takes effort, and it takes listening and observing to a higher degree than just acting.

Being child like & lashing, being a bitch to your emotions takes nothing.  Easy.  Instant.  Covering over that is easier than fixing the underlying problem–and the underlying problem is that without something to aspire to we aren’t all that good on our own.  We need to admit that we don’t know everything (anything?) and that we’re gonna subordinate whim to goal.

Being willing to expose your behavior publicly fixes this, to a good degree.   Being willing to be the same guy, one faced, public, private, not acting in a way that you’d have to shirk away from.  Not having secrets so you can’t be held hostage.

Now, I’m never gonna be going down this path: there’s a difference between moral and legal obligations, and I’m not saying “if you weren’t doing anything wrong, there’s no problems with the police searching your house.”  I don’t have the right to impose my standards on anyone else, nor do they have the right to impose them on me.  If privacy is a relic, it’s gotta be a relic because we’re transcending our old behaviors and voluntarily being right instead of attempting to seem right.  We have to close the gap between who we seem to be and who we are.

More later, as is ever the case.

Marketing/goals are set, just trying to crunch them right.

Related posts:

1. Transparency 2.0: No Lies, Blanket Permission to record my Calls…
2. Transparency & Integrity & Business.
3. Project Transparency: Challenge #2: Contacts
4. Transparency: Would You Be Different If Everyone Was Watching.
5. Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems