Back in the pre-pandemic days (elementary school), I was quite the Casanova. I made sure my teacher was never late for recess. I would check my Casio watch and tell her that it was time for recess, and we needed to be dismissed from her boring math lecture. She called me the Casio Nova, because I would slowly fade in energy throughout the day, to the point where I barely had any spark at all.

I give Nova’s a bad name, because at least they start shiny before fading into obscurity. I started life as the second kid that was less noticed in his family than the middle child (the supposedly most ignored). I was the Molly Ringwald of the family. The one that would have forgotten birthdays, that would be the one that teachers didn’t call on, and the one that had the minimum 1 picture in the yearbook.

If there was a picture next to obscurity in the dictionary, it wouldn’t be mine, because even the dictionary picture people would think I was too obscure for that. If I was in a picture with 10 military people in camouflage, you would be able to identify all 10 of them before you could find me.

If I was in Where’s Waldo, I wouldn’t stand out in a crowd of only Waldo’s. If I was a video game NPC, the NPC’s wouldn’t even find me interesting. In other words, I don’t stand out.

If I was living in the 1800’s, and then died say 35 years later, I wouldn’t have even warranted a stick showing where I was marked. Nowadays, there is an advantage to not standing out. You know how the CIA, FBI, NSA, Google, Alexa, and Siri and the Nanny Cams are always spying on you right? Oh, you didn’t know that? Well, they are.

I wish it was a conspiracy theory, but it isn’t. All of you are being watched and there is nothing you can do about it. You know who isn’t being watched at all ever? Me.

The reason you are being watched is because you are interesting. You are basically reality TV, that you didn’t sign up for. Your ratings with all the alphabet agencies are probably through the roof. If you were a show on TV, you’d be Friends, Seinfeld and The Office on the biggest Spy TV network.

I would love to offer you some advice, but you probably wouldn’t do it, even if I told you exactly what to do. Stop being so interesting, talented, funny, crazy, and good at Tik Tok. Stop discovering and sharing the latest gossip from your friends. Stop posting interesting pictures of the Sun on your Instagram. Stop working out, stop eating healthy, stop doing interesting work, and trying to save the planet.

Stop having a sense of humor, making really tasty food, and having kids that do funny things. Stop spilling stuff, falling on the ice, tripping on your sprinkler, and your rug. Stop making cookies for other people, and then licking the bowl.

Stop going to parties, stop making YouTube Videos about playing video games. Stop living in the moment, going hiking, watching sunsets, and watching sunrises. If you are tired of being spied on, do what I do.

Nothing.

I’m not even talking about Seinfeld nothing.

I’m talking about do nothing. Don’t even seem to exist. Be so boring that even an accountant would fall asleep if they talked to you.

The only real privacy you will ever have is being boring.

The more interesting you are, the more you are being spied on.

Of course, 007 is way too busy to spy on you. But you’ve got to be so boring that even 000017, wouldn’t be assigned to your case.

Last week, I talked about invisibility cloaks and how much I wanted to have one so I could remain invisible. Well, be so obscure that even if you took it off, no one would notice.

ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH

Bitter Privacy Protector Ben