Saturday 16 May 2009

Cold Blood & Secrets

What - if there is any - is the relation between cold bloodedness and secrets?

Trying to find out for myself, I have been thinking about this and been doing some brewing (see http://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/04/brewing-caleidoscope.html) lately.

From very early on as a child, I have loved secrets. My own secrets, that is. All kids love to discover, to find out about things and animals and people and places, so that is nothing special. Countless children's books aim at that, and most people still like a book or a film with a plot that keeps some things hidden from them until the end, many years after their childhood gave way to the turbulent teenage years and on to being adults.

Keeping something secret, no matter what it is, can add a certain thrill to life.
(I am by no means certain whether the term "thrill" actually fits what I am trying to describe here, but for lack of a better word, it will have to make do.)

In my case, as a child, those secrets consisted of things like knowing where my mum kept her diary, of hiding a glittery bit of paste jewellery in my dolls house wardrobe, of sneaking through a neighbour's garden at night to have a look at the goldfish in her pond without her knowing, and the like.

Later on, the secrets and the thrills became more elaborate, without ever being actually "bad" or dangerous. What mattered was simply that they were MY secrets.
Something only I knew about (or thought so, anyway).

Where does the cold blood come into this now?

Back at school, there were several incidents where I was accused of being as cold-blooded as a fish. While the other girls were ready to shed tears and show emotions that I simply did not feel when, for instance, we were about to go our separate ways for the six-week long summer holidays, I merely shrugged and went home after school like I would have done any other day throughout the year.

My own sister, who loves me to bits and vice versa, has once said that I am quite cold-blooded; she was referring to how I seemed to be totally unaffected when I ended my first marriage.
Ending my first marriage - or, rather, the reason for ending it - had a lot to do with secrets, namely with one that I chose to reveal at that stage.

Nowadays, I have secrets once again (like probably the majority of people, only that they call it privacy). Some of them completely innocuous, others a little less so.

Do they give me a bad conscience? No, they do not, and never have done.
I seem to be unable to feel those twangs of remorse that are often described by others when they have done something that is considered to be "not right".
And that, see, THAT is how my secrets are related to my cold-bloodedness.
Does it make sense? Have I managed to link the two aspects?
Actually, I am not entirely sure of it myself.

2 comments:

  1. Now that is a fascinating post. Perhaps I understand you a little better now. Then again perhaps not! Thank you for pointing me here.

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    1. Even now, almost three years after I wrote this, I am not sure whether I managed to convey what I meant to with this post. Therefore I am not surprised at your reaction :-) Thank you for taking the time and reading it.

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