Vignettes #23

In everyday life there are two aspects concerning truth: being honest, i.e. 'telling the truth', and keeping a secret, 'protecting the truth'. In my lifetime I've been told thousands of secrets, and honestly it is more of a burden than just an honor that someone trusts you.

I've noticed that people have all kinds of ideas about keeping secrets. One friend who I had asked why he had passed on a secret, although he had been asked not to, replied to me: "It is solely my own decision whether I pass something on or not." He obviously was an existentialist...

Others have a more simpler concept about this issue. One day Arno and I met up with our pal Wolfgang, and we immediately noticed that he was terribly upset about something. We didn't have to ask, though, since he told us straight away: a friend of his had told him something very personal 'under the seal of secrecy' ('Siegel der Verschwiegenheit', it was the term he used). "So I told this story to my good friend XY", Wolfgang said. "And you know what he did? He passed it on!"

We tried to explain to him that he was the one who had broken the secret and misused his friend's trust, but he refused to accept that: "But I had passed it on 'under the seal of secrecy'!" He went on about how his trust had been betrayed and that his first friend will be disappointed, and all because someone else had passed it on.

All our explanations were in vain. We also told him that he had additionally broken his promise by disclosing the same secret to the two of us, Arno and me. But he disagreed: "But now you, too, are bound by the 'seal of secrecy'!"