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Sunday, September 28, 2008

Secrets!


“Information that is kept, or meant to be kept private (by one, or a few individuals)”.

Recently a friend brought the matter of secrets to my attention, and that got me to thinking about the whole subject of what are secrets, and how should they be treated. Why is it that news reporters try hard to get their hands on your secrets so as to report them on the front pages or the evening news? If secrets are not important, why does everybody perk up at the sound of the word?

Let me warn you that should you ever wish to research this subject you will find it’s like jelly. You place your thumb on a part and the rest swishes away. The one thing that we can start with are the types of secrets. Military, industrial, commercial, artistic, religious, sporting; and the type that I’m going to deal with are personal secrets. For me, this is the most troublesome.

At one time I was engaged in a public study of a very sensitive nature. I conducted my research on a person-to-person basis in confidence. On one occasion I met with a group. My job was to collate the information and develop a report to my superiors. To my horror, one of the women with whom I met told her mother about our meeting, and her mother challenged me, saying that due to our personal friendship I should have told her about it. I refused to confirm or deny that I had even met with her daughter.

Keeping secrets is a very difficult thing to do, and when a friend approaches you with the question “Can you keep a secret?” you really do need to consider what is being asked of you in its fullest degree. Taking on privileged information from a friend that you are not supposed to divulge to anyone, for that is what a secret is, can be a very worrisome thing. Once you have the information it is human nature to want to share it with someone. If you are not able to share it you will begin to feel the weight of it.

The probable reason why you were asked to accept the information is that the other person was feeling the need for relief and to pass it along. It had become too much to hold in. When you pass information like this, having said you wouldn’t, that goes straight to your integrity and your honour.

There are professional people who take on their client’s secrets, and some are charged with holding those secrets lawfully. How do they cope? How does the priest protect the secrets from the confessional, and his own sanity? The psychologist takes on nothing but privileged information every day. He, or she cannot simply get drunk to forget.

Who decides on the status of information as to whether it should be held in confidence or not? If your friend says that they are sharing confidential information with you, should it be treated as such, or can you challenge it as non-confidential? Are there certain kinds of information that are commonly considered to be secret by their very nature? I’m thinking that medical data about a patient would be such, as would be financial information.

I personally think that the type of information that flows from personal relationships also fall under that heading. The Way to Truth states that “ Hearts are created as safes for keeping secrets. Intelligence is their lock; will-power is their key. No one can break into the safe and steal its valuables if the lock and key are not faulty.”

Having said that, these days we are seeing people going on television to lay all their washing out for the public to see. Famous personalities wake up to the shock awareness that a book has been written about them by a former lover. Publicity hungry people, who do not have a real life, will jump at the chance to bare all to the public, and the worse their story is, the telling of it seems to be all the more important.

Men and women generally tend to think that we are better than all of the other animals on the earth, but the fact is that it is our integrity and honour that separates us from the animal kingdom. If we have neither we have nothing to promote ourselves above the so-called dumb creatures.

I will have to return to this subject next week, but for the time being I want to suggest two things: (a) If you are the person who wishes to pass a secret, ask yourself why do you need to do this before just pressing it on to your friend. (b) If you are the person being approached with a request to accept privileged information, ask why is it important for you to have it.

The bottom line is that should you keep things that are clearly private, and are meant to be kept that way, to yourself, you will earn your place among high society. Do otherwise and you earn a place in the mud.

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael