Should I Keep the Doors Open?

If you are living in a boarding house, university dormitory or a shared flat you often want to protect your privacy. but what is a better practice: leaving your door open or keeping it closed? Keeping it closed suggests insecurity, that you are uncomfortable with others intruding on your activities but it also entail respect since you cant inspect what people are doing outside as they walk past, and it suggests they are keeping themselves to themselves. On the other hand someone who keeps there door open might be trying to foster a sense of community, albeit they may want to be the person in charge of that community. An open door invites people to look inside and find out, but at the same time asserts quite boldly "look at me, I have no secrets to hide!" A person with an open door may also be a control freak of their own, possibly they want to know the whereabouts of everybody walking past. Maybe they want to put on display how many people visit them a day as if to suggest "look at my room it is visited so often that I don't even bother closing it!" Usually people obsessed with privacy have some form of personality or anxiety issue. They may have some form of OCD. Particularly those who have multiple locks on their doors. Some people not only seal the gaps on their windows but also have a cloth wedged under their door so that you can't see if the light is on or not. In my boarding house at prep time they opened all the doors so that they could walk in easily and inspect the students at work. The idea was that you felt observed at all times so you wouldn't be tempted to socialize or get distracted by other activities. Maybe they acquired this practice from the 'panoptikon'. There are different types of jail cells, some of them are completely sealed off except for a tiny slit in the door, others are open and surrounded by bars. Our habits reveal a good deal about our true personality and the power structures in the community we live in. Not only the leaving open of doors but also the location of chairs, the position of the television. The way a curtain is drawn to reveal the outside, whether we have blinds or shades. People who are humble but secretly want to assert dominance will often start by acting reserved, they may choose to sit facing a wall, but later as they get more comfortable and people are less intrusive they might turn their chair to face the crowd.

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