On The Value Of Secrets
Spring 2020: I’m 1 week into my most recent 30-day pilgrimage across Northern Spain when an unusual realisation rises to the surface of my mind:
Nobody knows a single thing about my last 7 days; and what if nobody ever found out…?
It wasn’t that anything especially remarkable had happened - I’d committed no crimes, had no romantic flings, had written nothing worth reading or broken any hiking records at all.
The scenery and terrain through the Basque region of North-East Spain WAS incredible and I’d really enjoyed the trails, coffee, bakeries and amazing pilgrim dinner menus on offer, but it was mostly the standard hiker’s regime: wake, pack, walk, eat, walk, eat, walk, shower, rest, repeat…
Maybe I’d even enjoyed it BECAUSE it was such an easy, obvious routine.
My point being, however, that many stories, conversations, sharings, postcards etc could have been made from this first week, but a grand total of ZERO actually had!
It had a surprisingly strong effect on me, and its residue remained throughout the 2 and a half weeks that followed (I returned home a little earlier than planned in the end).
What if life could always remain a secret? And, actually, was it possible to truly ‘tell the truth’ anyhow? One’s momentary, visceral experience was, after all, rather difficult to accurately portray to others anyhow…
Vadim Zeland (author of ‘Reality Transurfing’) speaks of ‘excess potential’ throughout his million-bestselling text: put simply, the process of making something bigger than it actually is.
Is it that social media today, 4G, or even the speed of modern postal services, allow our momentary urges too much power, and give us simply too many opportunities to tell stories, share ourselves with others and, basically, no longer have any secrets.
The ‘secret’, after all, dissolves into everyday life if allowed to, and holds little excess potential after just a few hours or days.
What if we could allow the same spaciousness for our tiny crimes, our love affairs, our mistakes at home or at work, or for our own inner demons…?
What would remain of our successes (and sins) if no story was told about them…?
I do wonder…
Did you enjoy this blog? If so, click here to support EaglesWrites…
