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Sunday, October 5, 2008

Secrets II



As a member of a secret group, is there a feeling of being special just because it’s secret?

Let me be clear: What I’m talking about might be different to privacy, although I believe that generally it’s thought that the two are one and the same. I think that the right to privacy in our lives is an inalienable right; but secrecy is quite another thing.

Very public people who are professionals are still entitled to a private life. Simply put, as human beings we are not designed to always and forever be on show. We need down-time to be able to relax. The mobile phone is one of the most invasive objects to have been invented in the past 100 years. It invades our privacy in all manner of times and places, and more surprisingly it’s amazing the things we interrupt to answer.

In my last blog I talked about the weight, responsibility and honour of keeping the secret that we promised we would. Not everybody is automatically able to do this. For some people it requires deliberate practice to learn how to keep quiet when you long to blurt it out.

WikiHow, the on-line advisor at www.wikihow.com/Keep-a-secret, suggests the following things to help you keep mum about important information: (Words in italics are my own.)
1. Keep your motivator in mind. If you let the information out how damaging will it be?
2. How long do you need to keep the information to yourself. There is nothing worse than struggling to keep the information, only to find that it has passed into the general population.
3. Force yourself not to tell. This is about having the discipline to keep your mouth shut. As discipline goes, this form is quite extreme as the inclination to tell is one of our basic human characteristics.
4. Never drop any hints that you have secret information: Should you do so it will only be a matter of time before you let it out.
5. Avoid the 20 questions if someone thinks that you have something. News reporters do this all the time. They assume that you know something and they attack your soft spot. Don’t fall for it.
6. Don’t even bring up the topic within which is hidden the secret. That’s too easy for the inquisitive. Once the topic is on the table the forbidden information is a mis-spoken word away.
7. Defensiveness is good. If your questioner has figured out that you have the information there’s nothing wrong with being defensive about it. It’s OK to say I’m not going to talk about it.
8. Lie, if necessary. This would be an extreme thing to do, but if the information is so important, that would be better than releasing it. Politicians do it all the time.
9. Tell it to a stuffed animal. If you are breaking at the seams and you just have to tell it, do so to a stuffed animal. Preferably not one that has an eves- dropping microphone.
10. You can also just say the secret to yourself. Sometimes, just saying it is all that is needed to make it manageable.
11. Change the topic. If the topic comes up in a conversation and you hold secret information about it, as suavely as you can, try changing the subject. This works, as I have done this very thing.
12. Pretend you don’t know any secrets. This works well by simply refusing to confirm or deny that you know anything at all.
13. Never pass secret information to unreliable people. Stay a thousand miles away.
14. If your motivator is that the information is simply embarrassing, perhaps by some simple editing it can be made more acceptable.
15. Can you share the secret with one other trusted person? This is a dangerous suggestion for once the information passes to a third person it can no longer be assumed a true secret. However, there are whole groups who share confidential information so it just depends on the culture within which you operate.

“The Way to Truth” blog states that “Guarding a secret is the same as guarding one’s chastity. Those who keep a secret, whether personal or a friend’s. keep themselves chaste. Conversely, those who spread secrets damage their honour and reputation by leaving them unguarded.”

The business of secret keeping is indeed serious. However, sadly it is perhaps one of the most understated.

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael