Boundaries
Spring is a time for reflection and for finding reflections. As the snow from the recent blizzard is melting, I caught this small pool of water in my son’s back yard. What appealed was the shimmery quality of the water as well as the reflections of fence wire and fence post. It is almost as if the entrance into this world is barricaded to keep people out (or is it to keep the shady characters of the underworld from escaping into our outer world?). I took this photo in the late afternoon in order to catch the change in light that comes at that time of day, a light that paints the world with a hint of gold.
Light, the bending of light and its transformation of the world it touches makes for interesting photographs. And it symbolises the transformations we experience as humans. That shimmery golden light seems to be the boundary between the physical world as we know it and another world. This golden light becomes a boundary between day and night hinting that there might be something of value to be found in the darkness, something not otherwise accessible.
The question of boundaries goes beyond the simple division of spaces, places and states of being. Obviously there are boundaries such as exist separating private property, physical boundaries that are solid. What I want to look at here are those that are porous such as the boundary between consciousness and the unconscious. We talk of relationships (self and other) and see that there are obvious physical boundaries. Yet, there exists a zone between self and other that is porous and not influenced by conscious intention. The personal unconscious of both, as well as the collective unconscious have a way of ignoring intentional conscious boundaries, even what we could call ethical and moral boundaries.
It is easy to accept the notion of respecting the privacy of others, yet we think nothing as a society in creating and using technological tools that render privacy obsolete. We do so in the name of public safety. And, for the most part, we accept this significant erosion of privacy. On a more personal level, we are less willing to allow the boundary to be ignored. We expect the door to the bathroom to remain closed giving us privacy. We expect our diaries and journals to be kept sacred. We expect our sessions with analysts, therapists, doctors, counsellors and other institutional officials to be kept private. We even create laws for most of these expectations. Yet, for all of those laws, expectations and beliefs, most are willing to sacrifice these boundaries for reasons that they perceive as in the best interests of someone for whom they have a concern.
Parents read the journals of their children hoping to be able to deal with suicidal ideation or developing problems involving drugs. Nanny cams are set up both to monitor the baby sitters and the children. This comes about because of a lack of trust and the perceived need to know in spite of the need of others for privacy. It appears that these boundaries are for “self” but not “others.” The same can be said about married couples where one partner decides that the privacy of the partner is secondary to the need to “know” about perceived and real issues. Diaries, journals, emails and web surfing history are fair game as is the hiring of private investigators to track and even photograph the partner. Are these social and relational boundaries important enough to be sanctified and respected, or are they conditional? Who sets the conditions if conditional?
Tough questions. Any thoughts on your part with the question of boundaries?
Difficult question. It is a question which is a cocompanion of this transparency question, isn’t it? I personally enjoy of breaking boundaries, but I try to break just my bounderies, and respect the other persons boundary.
As I have mentioned I did this self-analysis with ego-state therapy. In my process I have broken my bounderies and tried to increase my tranparency. Which I tryed to do, was that I tryed to resepect at the same time the to me connected people’s privacy. That is why I used a lot of metaphors, like stories, fairy tails and philosophical metaphors, trough which I could free my emotions without breaking the boundaries of an other person.
Summa summarum, I reccomend persons to break more their own boundaries and less the other persons. Ofcourse if the other person’s behaviour is unethical, sometimes we have to break their boundaries if they don’t do it personally. So this is not a simple question:).
katisar
17 Apr 10 at 11:56 PM
This is a very difficult topic, as I confess to looking in my daughter’s diary, under the guise of care and concern as a parent. But… the ramifications were not worth the information I gleaned. The loss of trust was devastating for both of us, and took years to rebuild. I’ve also had my private emails read, and still do not totally trust that person, even years after.
It is in our diaries and private letters that we can allow ourselves to be ourselves, to explore options, think ‘bad’ thoughts that we may never act on, but help release tension. It is in the private places that we can try new ideas out, create new paths for us to take, develop ourselves more fully. If these private places are taken away from us, either personally or as a nation, then we lose that space for growth, for venting, for creating.
Gov’t regulations that allow the private to become public gain so little and at the same time create so much distrust. We no longer trust a government that insists it can look into our deepest private lives, and it clearly demonstrates that it does not trust its people.It is but a small step then to the types of excesses that occur when governments require children to report the activities and thoughts of their parents, husbands to turn in wives thinking the incorrect thoughts.
Total destruction of trust within a nation is devastating for the country as well as individually. We need to protect our private spaces and thoughts, and we need to protect those of others.
Lotus Light
18 Apr 10 at 4:28 AM
Yes, the difficulty is there. I guess that since it is so difficult it is something that needs extra attention as it has extra value to our psyche, to our sense of self. Thanks, Deb. You will hear more from me later.
Robert G. Longpré
18 Apr 10 at 9:04 AM
The needs of the state, of the international, growing one-world state demands a lack of privacy for individuals and a maximum level of privacy for the state. Yet knowing our desperate need for privacy, we think very little of invading the privacy of others in family and in community. We are voyeurs that get off on the indecent exposure of others on TV and in the tabloids. We feed our shadow very well.
Robert G. Longpré
18 Apr 10 at 9:08 AM
It is a good question and one that is not being asked by the people who need to be asking it.
365daysinthisbeautifullife
18 Apr 10 at 10:06 AM
It is a question that all must continually ask. There is a danger in thinking that we have asked the question and found the answer. Each day, each situation, each relationship continues to challenge our honouring the boundaries of others and maintaining the boundaries of “self.”
Robert G. Longpré
18 Apr 10 at 10:10 AM
Well, I promised to come back to this topic and here I am. Perhaps the topic needs another post, in fact, I am sure it does. That said, I will continue on here. Deb, you talk about looking at your daughter’s diary. I do understand this from a mother’s point of view. Fathers, I think, have a natural “distance” even if they get very involved in family. Perhaps I am generalizing and this is just my particular way of being. Regardless, it is, as you rightly put it, about loss of trust.
Boundaries are about safety, both physical and psychological safety. The last thing any of us is to be exposed by others. It is much different to open one’s self up so that others can see in to some of the private world we each create as our safe haven. In essence, it is absolutely no different than rape, a total invasion.
We also need boundaries within our self. There needs to be a boundary between the conscious and the unconscious. That boundary is permeable for a reason. Its permeability is so that awareness of what is hidden is allowed to come forth from the unconscious. What is not supposed to happen is for the unconscious to spill out and act on our behalf. And this isn’t about repression, it is about containment for one’s own safety as well as the safety of others. One of my readers, Ur-Spo, talks about this in his “Rumpelstiltskin post (http://sporeflections.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/the-rumpelstiltskin-complex/) – thanks, Ur-Spo.
Enough for now. I think that it won’t be long before I return with a separate post on this topic. Thanks, Deb.
Robert G. Longpré
19 Apr 10 at 10:12 AM