Privacy Is Being Together

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Do they have open toilets? What happens when someone develops a thundering snore? No farts all of your own?

A Japanese family of three commissioned an architectural firm to design a house in which the family members would be in touch with one another at all times. Privacy is being together. Being together is privacy.

The dichotomy of privacy and togetherness is insuperable. A person will always seek and have private moments even in the presence of other people.

I suspect, a human being can bear, even enjoy, a high degree of alien presence, if the rhythm of change between private retreat and social exposure agrees with her.

At boarding school I had very little privacy, but I was happy at the place. The said rhythm was right, I needed leadership (not so much by a person than in an abstract sense) and got it by virtue of a day full of common activities. However, moments of withdrawal and private immersion were possible.

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