We Are Always Being Watched by the Watchers

(street art Zurich)

We are all spies and we are spied upon in the world today. Everything is being watched by someone. And though some may complain and cry for privacy, they are taking part in the storm as well. Whether it's for some false sense of security or a simple narcissistic need to broadcast yourself to the world, we all watchers watching each other.

There's a sense of anxiety that comes with living in a world like ours and its something I've tried to tap into with my novel Life is But a Dream (coming out this winter). In that book, I dealt with the invasive nature of being watched and turned it into a element of horror for the main character as she struggles with reality.

In the book I started writing last week, this idea of ever present watchers has crept in again. This time it's even more of an outright horror element. After all, it's the stuff of horror--from the dystopian world of 1984 (mistakenly dated 20 years too soon) to Nazi school text books that encouraged spying on your neighbor. But we've chosen this for ourselves. It's funny how mankind tends to indulge in its own nightmares.