Hello to everyone reading this! It's been a long long time since i have taken part in the question of the week initiative, so i am very happy. To tell you the truth i don't have much time lately and i am already writing one post per day and add to that the manual curation. That equals zero free time left.
Anyway, let's dig into the question and try to give some answers or at least sharing my personal opinion cause that's what heroes do!
Secrets are lying everywhere around us and for the most part, we are completely unaware. That's why they called secrets, after all, dah!! Everybody has his/her secrets and the interesting or funny thing, depending on how you see it is that secrets are a part of us since we were born and we continue to exists till the end of mankind.
To answer whether it's good or bad having secrets is rather complicated from my point of view. As i said above having secrets it's part of us and will be part of us forever. Psychology has a lot to do with it as well as our human nature so we can't just let it go.
Secrets need to be categorized but before we do that we need to give a definition. So let's just simply say that "secrets are any information that a person intended to conceal from one or more individuals"
Now secrets have many and different forms, the most usual in my opinions related to lies, theft/crime, financial state, personal stuff, government stuff. The majority of those secrets are tied in my opinion with punishment but i will explain later on what i mean! Let's now take some cases and examples of the above and determine whether it's good or bad to keep them a secret!
Financial Related Secrets
Under this category is any finance-related secret. For example, how many people have kept their salaries secret? Also, how many times you kept a secret about what your belongings are from others? The same can also be applied to how one built his career ;)
So there isn't exactly a generic answer about whether it's good or bad that we are having secrets but in my opinion, it's easy to answer that depending on the case. For example, when i consider someone my friend i don't have any problem telling him about my salary, even the exact details.
On the other hand, if somebody asked me that i could see his ill intention i wouldn't bother to tell him. Also, when we know we did something wrong like we managed to get x amount of money or advance in our careers by not being fair and honest, then we tend to keep it a secret. In this case, it's both bad that we did what we did and that we keeping a secret cause we don't wanna face the consequences.
Personal Secrets
In a way, this one is linked with the above but let's give another approach. We may have a disgusting habit or something that we are totally ashamed of. So instead of revealing it, we keep a secret for as long as we can!
In that case, i suggest we actually try and understand what this habit or thing that we are ashamed of is exactly. When we do so we either gonna move forward and leave it back or become friendly with it and never be ashamed again, so there will be no point of secrecy.
Government Secrets
Having secrets on that level is a whole other case. Once again it depends there isn't a yes it's bad not it's not kind of answer. I believe that some of the things that the governments are keeping from us "for our sake" are nonsense. They simply do this to control us or generally speaking for their sake.
That doesn't apply to everything though. For example, we got secret services in every country. Just imagine if had those agents reveal their identities, they could lose their lives to even have their whole families suffer!
Maybe in another world where secret services will be of no use, the secrets will be of no use either, but in that world and in that era, some secrets are needed.
Lies - Theft/Crime
You may those 2 together but allow me to explain. The main reason i wrote Lies and Theft/Crime together is that they have something in common, in most cases. That common thing is called punishment. You see if you reveal that you commit a crime or stole something or that you said lies about something you most likely gonna get punished for that.
Not necessarily punished in a form of prison or paying something but there are also other forms of punishment. For instance, if you may be stigmatized by others, they may stop talking to you or even cut you from their lives.
For example, if you cheat on your wife or husband you are keeping it a secret because you actually afraid of the consequences. It's not to protect the other but to protect yourself and you fear the punishment that may follow, which is to lose her/him.
Final Thoughts
Having secrets it's both good and bad, it just depends on the case. The sad thing is that the majority of secrets that are kept are actually for our sake because we don't wanna admit things to ourselves no matter what we say to feel better!
Ahh and if you wanna take part in this initiative click on here to learn more