There’s a house across the street from yours. You know for a fact the people living in it are spying on you. It’s been going on for at least the last two decades.
It’s not just nosy neighbors, simply watching you from behind curtained windows, like Mrs. Kravitz. No, these people are using the most sophisticated cameras, listening devices, and other technology to track your movements, watch you eat dinner, and eavesdrop on your conversations.
Although you can’t see them doing it or any of their equipment, you know it’s happening. Yet there’s really nothing you can do. It’s just become a fact of life and it is what it is.
Although you don’t discuss it much, your children know it’s happening too. They’ve pretty much accepted it and don’t insist you do anything.
One reason you know it’s taking place, quite frankly, is because you’re doing the same thing to them. You have the same sophisticated technology and are eavesdropping on them, while tracking their every move. They know you’re doing it as well, but they really can’t do anything about it either.
Life goes on. Like this, for years.
One day, one of the neighbors comes out, walks across the street, stands on the sidewalk in front of your house, and starts taking pictures with a basic Polaroid Land camera.
Your kids go berserk. They insist you do something about this blatant, in-your-face affront. You try to point out that it’s just a guy with a cheap camera, nothing compared to the expensive technology he has in his house, but they are unrelenting. “He’s right there, we can SEE him, the neighbors can SEE him doing it…it’s embarrassing. Make him stop!”
After a few days of this, with your children and now the neighbors pointing out how humiliating the whole spectacle is, you go out, grab the camera from his hand and smash it in the street. The guy objects, saying he was only birdwatching, but just slinks back to his house across the street.
Everything is now normal; you can live in quiet peace again.
After all, what you can’t see can’t hurt you.
Life goes on.
_____
Update 2/13/23…
Since I posted this a couple days ago, a few more folks have left your neighbor’s house and come across the street to take pictures. In each case, you’ve immediately gone out and broken their cameras, which is probably your best move.
Life still goes on.