Secrets.

Well here I am again in the middle of the night blogging.


It's been a bit of a bugger this last month, as I haven't been able to blog about something major. So this is going to be the blog about secrets. 


What do you do when you're told something huge and are then sworn to secrecy? Something that people would kill to find out, or something that so rocks your world that you can not keep it in? 


Apparently I must have a sign on my forehead that blinks in neon telling others to confide in me. Now it's nice that people feel that they can trust me, but it's also a huge burden. I'm subject to the same foibles as everyone else, perhaps even more than most?


I'd love to say that I can keep any secret anywhere, anytime, but that is just not true. I feel sick spilling the beans, and like I've cheated people by abasing their trust. I know that I've been known to tell secrets purely to have a laugh at someone else's expense, which not only abuses trust, but also shows how inferior I feel at times. I feel bad that I can stoop so low as to build myself up on someone else's misfortune. I'm ashamed that I stoop to bullying behaviour. Ashamed that I would willingly subject someone else to behaviour that I loathed to be at the mercy of. I'd love to say "Ah well, I'm only human." thus letting myself off the hook...surely as a mature adult I'm meant to be able to rise above such behaviour, treating everyone I meet with compassion and kindness. LOL, I know it's something I spout off about here often enough! Is it any wonder this is something I beat myself up over?


*sigh* it's obviously a personality fault I'm not going to be able to solve in this short post.


Well, that self attack aside, there was more that I intended to write about in this post. So on with the story...


What happens when someone tells you something that rips your world apart and forces you to chose a stance which declares who you are as a person? Say a friend arrives at your house one day and  says they work in the local gas chamber where thousands are killed everyday...and that YOU MUST KEEP THIS A SECRET, because your friend will be killed if anyone else knows. What do you do? How do you cope with the burden of knowing something so terrible? Are you allowed to tell someone else that you trust not to let the bosses or the public know, just so that you're not shouldering this burden on your own? Did your friend tell you just so that they weren't suffering alone under the weight of the secret? Does your sense of what is right and honest declare to the world that horrifying things are happening in your town, or do you keep your secret to save the life of your friend? Perhaps you will also be killed for telling someone else the secret? Perhaps all the people who enter the gas chamber are there of their own free will, and your saying something ends their ability to participate in euthanasia? Whatever you decide to do with this secret irrevocably declares your stance on the killings. Whatever the outcome, you have made a decision about whether or not to kill your friend...and certainly altering the world view of the any people that you do tell. You may also have saved thousands of lives, or perhaps none at all depending upon who you've chosen to share this secret with. If you shared your secret with someone else who will keep the secret with you, have you been unfair in forcing them to have to make that choice?


I suppose what I'm trying to illustrate with that scenario is whether or not keeping a secret is selfish? Whether you are selfish or selfless all depends upon who you are in that scenario...I suppose that whomever ends up dying because of your choice regarding the secret would see you as selfish...and even if you did spill the beans and manage to not have anyone die you may still be seen as selfish by the people who wanted the gas chamber operating in the first place.


I suppose that is where morals and ethics come into play...you make the decision that you hope will be best. There will always be someone who isn't happy with the way things have played out, and you just have to live with the consequences of your actions.


*sigh* I think I've come to the conclusion that I hate secrets. My life would be so much easier to live if people didn't tell me things. I want to be an ostrich and stick my head in the sand...frankly I'd prefer to have my bum eaten by a lion than to make any more life altering decisions, due to someone else confiding in me!


lol, perhaps I'll have a shirt made up to say just that...or a tattoo on my forehead? Or at the very least I could smash the neon sign that's flashing away up there?


Cheers, Kate