Our Little Secrets

What is essential about a secret? A secret is something you don't want to share with other people. Or a few people at most. Your trusted ones. Furthermore: secrets are usually about things you want to keep to yourself. Secrets are about things you've done, you're embarrassed about, or things that give you a bad feeling about yourself. And then there are the secrets you want everyone to know about. This of course, is my interpretation of what a secret is. But definitions abound, as, at least was demonstrated by the Dutch secret service AIVD (pronounce AhEeVayDay). Someone, we don't know who, that remains a secret, sold secret information to criminal organizations in Amsterdam. This was not an incident. In 2005 the same thing happened twice in other cases. Things are not at all well at the AIVD you might think. Not the home secretary Mr. Remkes. He tried to reassure everybody, by declaring nothing structural was wrong. Very likely this is an interpretation too, but one thing is certain: if you have a secret and you want everybody to know about it, informing the AIVD might be a good strategy. I don't think parliament is going to solve this by debating the AIVD. What you need to understand is that where secrets are involved, disclosure is inevitable. A secret that no-one knows about is a non-entity. And probably most important; telling a secret is an exciting thing to do. That's why most people cant refrain from doing it in these thrill-seeking ages.