“In a nation which increasingly appears to prize social virtues, Howard Hughes remains not merely antisocial but grandly, brilliantly, surpassingly, asocial. He is the last private man, the dream we no longer admit.”

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Written in the late ‘60s, Didion manages to express a sentiment that transcends time and provides more meaning for a world that cares little for personal autonomy. If you consider the leverage tech companies have on the world, building dependency on your data and a refusal to accept boundaries on it, solitude seems out of reach.

A myth from a time long forgotten and an unreasonable way to function today.

As I write this, I consider the time coming when AI built into operating systems will be reading and analyzing every keystroke I make. The algorithms have already been doing this across the board, to the point where Apple emphasizes privacy as one of their selling features. Other companies use superfluous language such as “user experience” and “personalized” in hopes they can divert attention from their clear Orwellian doublespeak of, “we’re logging everything you do.”

We’re a long way from the days of being able to own a product and do with it what we will.

The real problem, however, is we’re meant to believe our participation in the world today involves this tradeoff:

You can’t get away from big tech taking your data, someone has recorded you in some way in public and posted it for the world and then there’s good old-fashioned gossip that is the backbone of human civilization.

Growing up, the running joke was the evening calls my mom made to her family weren’t phone calls, but fodder for the gossip line. I know I’m not alone on that sentiment.

This begs the question of whether privacy is still achievable. Was Hughes really the last private man?

That question can be answered with another one:

Is it possible to retreat from the accepted narratives while still participating in society?

I look at people like Neal Stephenson and think, yes, it’s still possible. There just must be a willingness to commit to it.