I received a video this week on Facebook titled “What drugs can do to your mother.” Some of you probably have seen the video. It appears to be an older woman dancing to some drumming and music somewhere. I don’t imagine this woman even knew someone was making a video of her dance. She doesn’t appear to have the moves that society might deem as right, but she appears to be enjoying herself immensely.

Whoever made the movie of this woman either did so to make fun of the woman or they made the movie enjoying that she is enjoying life. I passed the movie on because I loved this woman’s enthusiasm for life not caring what anyone in the public would think of her dance. I didn’t pass it on to be cruel or to make fun of this lady. I passed it on so that others could enjoy her enjoyment of life.

One of my young friends in her 30s made the comment that it could be me and her mother. It could have been because we would do that. I don’t know if my young friend was proud of that fact or she was shaking her head in embarrassment knowing her mother and I would do that kind of dancing if we had the chance. We also would probably dance just like the woman in the video.

What I find a little scary about this is the fact that it is so easy to take pictures and videos of people and post them without these people’s knowledge. It could be us in an embarrassing moment out in the public. We have to have the knowledge that someone is always watching us and waiting for that “America’s Funniest Home Video” moment. We only have to hope that we are so uninteresting that no one would want to take our picture and post it for any reason.

We should feel like movie stars. We are on camera all the time. We are on camera when we enter a store. We are on camera when we walk down some streets in major cities. We are on camera when we are driving our car in large metropolitan areas. Many have cameras on their houses to keep track of intruders that may invade their property. We have nanny cams to watch what is happening in our house.

Our pets are even on camera much of the time if you take them to certain boarding facilities. You can log on to your computer and view how your pet is doing where he or she is staying. We are starting to get so used to cameras following us that we do not think too much about it.

We can be tracked by our cell phones. We can be tracked by GPS in our vehicles. Our computer use is tracked by Web sites so that when we visit their site they know who we are and they can call us by name. For a little bit of money you can find out anyone’s information on numerous Web sites.

All of this can be fun if we want to be tracked. It can be fun if we don’t want any privacy. We seem to have all of these privacy acts but the world seems to be the least private it has ever been. We don’t seem to be concerned about this because all of this is supposedly to keep all of us safer and make life more convenient.

What happens when this isn’t used for safety purposes? What happens to us when it is used for voyeuristic opportunities? I would call the video of the woman dancing as a voyeuristic opportunity. And, yes, I was one of the people who watched and passed it on. It could be that it was passed on with the woman’s permission. I have no idea. I just passed it on without thought of being a watcher in this woman’s life. Would I have appreciated that?

We allow all of this intrusion into our life because we want to be safe. We need to ask ourselves at what level we need to draw the line. We need to ask ourselves if our fear is greater than our need for privacy.

I would like to tell the woman in the video that she made me smile with her joy of life. Whoever she is, wherever she is, I would like to thank her for letting us share her moment of expressing her joy of the dance. Perhaps by remembering this video the rest of us can remember that life is to be enjoyed moment by moment and whatever way we choose to express that joy. It is our moment, and we should have the choice as to whether we share it with the world.

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net or visit her blog at www.justalittlefluff.blogspot.com.Listen to KBEW AM radio 1:30 p.m. Sundays for “Something About Nothing.”