What Happens to Secrets?
On known knowns and unknown unknowns
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Dear Bolu,
A while ago, I stumbled upon one of the most useless pieces of information on the internet. On Celine Dion's Wikipedia page, she was described as the best-selling Canadian recording artist in history. The hyphenated word, "best-selling" jumped out at me. Why? Well, can you think of any other artist besides the Canadian who goes by the name "Celine"? Probably not. As such it only makes sense that she is the best Celine artiste Canada has ever produced. As I said, it was useless information.
Still on matters about the Canadian, "can you keep a secret?" is the opening line of one of her fairly popular releases titled If Walls Could Talk. It is a strange way to start a song because it invites you to answer a question. What makes it a stranger thing is that the song proceeds regardless of your response. It's almost like she doesn't care if you can or cannot keep what she's about to tell you to yourself.
Well, she's right not to care about your response because the question is not directed at you. It is aimed at her lover. Although we never get to hear his response, she did go on to spill the beans, as it were. The rest of the song is well written and features the typical undertones that accompany sonic renditions of the rosy side of modern romantic relationships. In other words, it's a pretty good love song.
She followed the opening question with the assertion that walls keep a secret. She didn't need to ask the walls if they could keep a secret. Of course, you'd think her mad if she posed such a question to a mass of bricks and mortar. Walls don't talk. They may have ears, yes. But they don't talk and that's why you can trust them to safeguard secrets. You can depend on them or quite literally, lean on them.
We, on the other hand, have mouths. We talk through them and we need to because we are social beings. We must commune, we must relate. We must talk about climate change, stock trading, space travel, or food preferences. We talk, and that constitutes the ever-present risk that we'd spill a secret.
We know and recognize this—the risk involved in telling and keeping secrets. Nevertheless, we usually find ourselves in the familiar position where we are asked if we can keep a secret. When the question comes, we might feel a little disappointed in the fellow who is asking. We might wonder why they'd think we'd ever betray this trust they're reluctant to bank on.
We are usually quick to affirm that we can, indeed, keep a secret. At this point, we are also wondering what it could be. Have they been ritualistically slaughtering geckos in their spare time? Do they know someone else's secret? Do they have access to the outcomes of fixed international ludo matches? Have they gained a superpower? Have they discovered the mechanism through which water enters a coconut? So many questions...
We are excited about the prospects of gaining some special knowledge. But we never really know what we're signing up for. We say we can be tight-lipped about whatever they tell us and we are truly confident that we can. In fact, if we were coerced into spilling the secret with a gun to our heads, we'd never give in. And if in an extreme attempt to glean the knowledge we are guarding, we were taken to Guantanamo Bay and waterboarded, we won't reveal so much as a word.
We don't know the weight of the information we are about to hear but we welcome it all the same. It could very well cost us a limb or our lives, but when has that risk ever stopped us from reaching, achieving, and fulfilling? We must hear them out, we must know this secret. And when it gets revealed to us, we are either disappointed or thrown into wonderment. "Oh, this is a trifle". "Oh, my goodness". In either case, we've been granted esoteric knowledge and it's up to us to keep our word by not telling it to another.
It seems like an easy task but that’s not always the case. We try really hard to keep it to ourselves and sometimes we succeed—we keep our word. Other times, we don't. Say when we try to resuscitate a dying conversation by telling someone something interesting which happens to be another’s secret. But before we spill it, we remember to administer a mandatory test. We must ask them if they can keep a secret. We may not care much about the genuineness of their answer as we only need some reassurance that the secret will be safe.
We hope they say yes because we'd really like to tell them about it. It's like there's some joy to be derived in passing on secretive information. Perhaps there is but I'm not sure where it stems from. Is it the knowledge that we know things others don't? Is it the fact that it deepens the connections we have with our confidante? I'm not sure. But we are pleased that they're hearing this news exclusive from us. And like oil out of a broken pipe, we spill.
We spill secrets for the same reasons we keep them. To help people, pull them down, build trust, and the list could be longer. It's tough to be a gatekeeper of some secrets, but we do our best for the people we love. We do our best.
What happens to secrets that don't get spilled? In one of The Boondocks' more iconic scenes, Gin Rummy (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) explains the concept of unknown unknowns—things we don't know that we don't know. That's what our unspilled secrets are to others; unknown unknowns. Buried mysteries that we choose not to disclose. Some, we swear, will follow us to our graves. Others, we promise will be proclaimed after our demise.
Perhaps in a goodbye letter, we'd reveal how much fortune we had. Perhaps a sibling will find, in one corner of our messy wardrobe, a collection of letters we'd hoped to send to someone we cared about but just never could. Perhaps on the mortician's table, our cold bodies will expose the scars of the cuts we gave and received to escape the torture of our cobwebbed minds. Perhaps no one will ever find out and perhaps no one needs to.
Ah, but now and then, the walls we built around our more intimate secrets crumble. It could be that time, in its magnificence, eats away at each inch of brick and we don't feel the secret bears as heavy a weight as it used to. It could be that we've found someone we are willing to trust and entirely bare ourselves to. It could be other things that tempt us to bring these undisclosable stories out of obscurity and into the light.
In such situations, you don't tell them the gist immediately, but you are bold enough to confess that you have a secret. Now, their ears perk up—they want to hear about it. From an unknown unknown, your secret has become a known unknown to them—what they know that they don't know. It's an unsettling position for them because they are likely to feel that you don't trust them enough. But if they are kind, they will give you the time you need.
A moment passes and you find the courage to tell them. You know the risk, yes. You know it may get out eventually, but you're choosing to trust them. In fact, they may think you insane after your confession especially if it involves you admitting that you have a ritual for slaughtering geckos. Still, you choose to be open. And before you spill it, like Celine Dion, you open with a question—can you keep a secret?
Fin.
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Write you soon, merci !
- Wolemercy