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Secrets
2 min read · 535 words
A secret is information held by one operator and deliberately kept from at least one other — and most secrets cost more than the operator initially calculated.
The Secrecy entry covered the broader configuration. This entry addresses the specific units — individual secrets, with their specific costs, accumulating across the operator’s life. Each secret is its own load. Each requires monitoring of what has been said, who knows what, what stories have to be maintained. The cumulative load of many small secrets often exceeds the felt cost of any single one, and operators sometimes don’t notice how much load they are carrying until they unload some of it and feel the difference.
The categories of secret. First: secrets that protect others. Information that, if disclosed, would harm the operator who would be exposed. Some of these are legitimate and worth keeping despite the cost. Second: secrets that protect the operator. Information that, if disclosed, would expose the operator to consequences they don’t want. Some of these are reasonable; some are concealment of behavior the operator could change rather than continue concealing. Third: secrets that serve no protection but are kept by inertia. The information that started as private, never had reason to be disclosed, and has continued unstated past the point where there’s any reason to maintain it.
The third category often surprises operators on examination. Why am I still keeping this from this person — sometimes the answer is no current reason; this just got encoded as private and continued. These secrets can often be released without significant cost, and the release reduces the load.
From the chair: audit current secrets periodically. What is being kept, from whom, why. Some will warrant continued keeping. Some will reveal themselves as no longer warranting it. Some will reveal that the cost of keeping has come to exceed the cost of disclosing — the relationship is being damaged by the secret more than disclosure would damage it.
The other application: be careful what secrets the operator agrees to keep for others. Each secret carried becomes load. The operator who has been told secrets by many other operators is carrying a stack of loads, with restrictions on what they can say, in what contexts, to whom. Some carrying is appropriate — the legitimate confidence of close relationships. Indiscriminate carrying — the operator who absorbs everyone’s secrets without limit — produces a cumulative load that distorts the operator’s own operation.
The other discipline: notice when a secret starts to feel heavy. The signal is real. The secret that the operator has carried easily for years and is now starting to feel heavy may be reaching the point where keeping it costs more than disclosing it. The signal warrants examination, not automatic suppression. Sometimes the right move is continued keeping, despite the weight. Sometimes the right move is the harder operation — finding the right person, the right time, the right way to release what has been held.
The secret that should not be kept indefinitely is the one whose continued keeping is corroding the relationships or the operator’s own state. The signal to address it usually arrives before the operator chooses to listen.