I recorded my first videos about my Constitution project. They were terrible.
Maybe “terrible” is unfair. But there was bad lighting. Stumbled words. That slightly alarming experience of seeing yourself on camera and wondering whether that is actually what you look like when you talk.
They were definitely not ready for my close-up. So I did something fairly revolutionary. I tried again.
The second recordings were better.
Not perfect. But more natural. More comfortable. More like me.
And somewhere in the middle of thinking about actually putting them out into the world, another thought appeared: What if my ex sees these?
That was the interesting moment.
Not because Jerry had said anything about the videos. He hadn’t.
Not because he’d criticized the project. He hadn’t.
Not because I even knew he would see them. I didn’t.
The man wasn’t even in the room.
And yet, for a moment, I was considering changing something I wanted to do because of a reaction another person had not actually had.
That is an impressive amount of authority to give an imaginary audience.
The Court Objects
One of the things I am learning through this Constitution project is how often the important moment happens before the behavior.
It’s the tiny pause.
The almost-unnoticed calculation. What will they think? Will this bother someone Will someone misunderstand it? Should I make this smaller, quieter, safer, less visible?
There is nothing inherently wrong with considering other people. In fact, I think consideration is an important part of being in relationship with anyone.
But consideration and self-editing are not the same thing.
One responds to an actual person and actual circumstances. The other can respond to a courtroom full of people who aren’t even there.
My Constitution already gives me a useful standard:
Article IV.6.2 — I will make decisions based on demonstrative behavior.
Demonstrative behavior. Not behavior I predict. Not conversations I imagine. Not reactions I rehearse in my head on someone else’s behalf. What has actually happened?
In this case, nothing. I made a video. He might see it. He might have thoughts about it.
That is the entire case.
Other People Get to Have Reactions
This may be one of the harder parts of independence for me.
If I am free to make my own choices, other people are equally free to have opinions about those choices.
I don’t get to control both sides of that equation.
I can decide what I make. I can decide what I publish. I can decide whether something represents me and whether it aligns with the person I am trying to become.
I cannot decide what someone else thinks when they see it.
And I don’t need to.
That is their jurisdiction.
This is mine.
There is another Constitutional principle here too:
Article IV.4.1 — I will encourage another’s independence without threatening connection.
I usually think about that Article in terms of what I owe another person. But independence works both ways.
I cannot claim independence for other people while quietly surrendering my own whenever I imagine they might disapprove.
And Then There Was the Other Lesson
The first videos were awkward. The second ones were better. This is not a profound mystery.
It is practice.
I suspect I have sometimes treated discomfort as evidence that I shouldn’t be doing something, when discomfort may simply be evidence that I haven’t done it very many times yet.
The first attempt doesn’t have to prove that I am good at something. It only has to get me to the second attempt. And the second gets me to the third. Somewhere along the way, awkward becomes familiar.
That matters because this project is not supposed to be a performance of a person who has everything figured out.
It is the practice of becoming the person I have said I want to be.
Which means perhaps imperfect videos are not a problem with the project.
Perhaps they are the project.
The Ruling
The Court finds that other people are entitled to their reactions. They are not entitled to run my life in anticipation of them.
The Court further finds that an individual who is not present, has said nothing, and may not even know the proceeding exists has remarkably little standing.
Disposition: Affirmed.
I made the second video.
I kept going.
And the Court establishes the following precedent:
I will not edit my life for an imagined audience.
That seems worth practicing.
Especially when the audience isn’t even there.
Court adjourned.