Sak

Secrets

11.09.09 16:56
Section: Sak
Filed Under: Copyright - CC, Questions

I love questions. I love thinking about questions; how I’d answer them, what the answers might implicate about me, about the world that I live in. I ran into a fun question recently that I really enjoyed deliberating.

Here’s the question (the origin is at the end of my meandering)¹.

The secrets of this world are many. Who do you share them with?

a. Those who have embraced the truth.
b. Anyone who can pay the price.
c. My blood alone.

Since the question is multiple choice, it gives me someplace to begin, instead of coming up with an answer on my own. Already tainted by the suggestions of the choices, I can’t answer the question fairly as if I didn’t have those choices to consider. But that would have been fun too.

Considering the question as it is, the first things that jump into my head are the secrets and who I’d share them with. The idea of secrets goes back a long way, and contains some pretty heavy implications. There are issues of trust, depending on the weight of the secret. What effect would the secret have on one or many should it become known? How much would that result in a positive or negative change in an individual or group of people? You can’t help but come to the issue of who is deserving of that secret, and you are responsible for knowing it, and deciding how, or even if it’s disseminated to others. All of the options have a suggestion for the who but each carries with it additional considerations.

Apparently the secrets contain truth, which can be mind-boggling. Some consider that truths are things that are believed, not proven. Belief being such a powerful thing, in the minds of some it could be considered truth, even when it’s not. Truth, to me, should be absolute, and is therefore a pretty scary thing. It is both painful and liberating to realize the truth, and even more so to live it. Unfortunately, the reality of truth is that not everyone can cope with it. There are times when I can’t handle the truth, as much as I may struggle to, or even delude myself into believing that I do. It’s difficult to say that anyone is capable of embracing it, even those who may say that they are. People can be pretty conniving in order to get a hold of something that they think they want, but then having it is a big responsibility. So with the responsibility of having the truth, all of it, complete, you are carrying with you the potential for pure madness, if not achieved already. Wings the weight of the world.

Just because you say you want to carry the truth, the secret, doesn’t mean that you’re qualified. As the one attempting to answer the question, I have to assume myself in the position of one qualified, and that’s not justifiable. But as I think of it under these terms, I try to attach some sort of real-life perspective to it. When I think of something so weighted, so important as carrying a secret which contains the absolute power to build and destroy, I can’t help but realize the sacrifices necessary to carry that truth; the price.

It takes a unique type of person willing to accept the costs of such a role. I don’t think that it’s something that can be handed down to members of a particular family, or even species, as carriers of a specific ‘blood’ might suggest. We’ve all met family members that we didn’t quite agree with philosophically. Or even the idea of one ancestor making the requisite sacrifice to carry the secret, and then handing it down to further generations, like wealth, opens up too great a potential for disaster. Spoilt children don’t have all the right marbles, no matter how idealistic their forebears might have been. I has to be something proven anew, each life, by every person. If the person is willing to live the sacrifice necessary, to earn it, then the secret, the truth, is a responsibility that they are capable of carrying. Only the individual can prove that, not the indoctrination of some society or organization, not the handing down of some trust simply because of race or creed. That struggle is a life, not a choice; an uncommon accident, a freak of nature that has only proven itself because it is what it is, and can’t be anything else. Being sentient, and recognizing life for what it is, then, it recognizes the secret, and it recognizes the cost of its life to carry it.

The funny thing is, being of that nature, and the incredible solitude that comes with carrying the secret, there is the desire to find others who live under the same onus. I suppose that being social animals as we are, we’re going to go looking for people to group and couple with; a struggle against the near debilitating loneliness that is one of the taxes on having the wealth of truth. So we drop little hints every now and again, and watch to see how someone else might respond. We’re always hopeful that there is another out there who is helping to carry the burden of the secret, but willing to accept that this is something we’ll carry on alone, knowing that the truth is something to be discovered by anyone who is capable of paying the price.

How would you answer the question?

¹ The question was part of a quiz for a video game that’s currently in development. I wanted to leave out the context of the question so that it’d be considered for what it is, based on the words that make it up, and would be explored openly.