Possessing Secrets

If you read me for very long, you’ll notice I have problems with the idea of possession, the idea that one can ‘own’ anything.

Over my career, I’ve been paid to keep a lot of secrets: proprietary software and data, information about mergers, medical data, people’s secrets and fetishes. I am beginning to learn some secrets of vodou, as a part of my training. And, of course, I have a lot of conversations with people where they disclose all sorts of personal information.

I once asked Papa how he does it, since he spends his entire day dealing with secrets. He shrugged—in retrospect I know why—and replied that it’s not hard.

He’s right. It isn’t hard, once you realize that they aren’t your secrets. You don’t own any of the secrets you know.

I am, at best, a faulty storage vessel for secrets that I am care-taking for people: faulty because I do my best to forget what I don’t need to know, and care-taking because I own nothing.

I don’t own the house I live in. I don’t own my car. I nominally own my bank account, but that’s iffy. I rent a website whose code I change. I have a few bins of clothes, and even those are subject to change or someone needing them more than me. My ideas aren’t even my own, loves.

I don’t employ myself, though that’s what I’m putting on the business paperwork because the IRS does not acknowledge spirits as employers.

How could I possibly own a secret? I don’t create them, I just hold them for awhile.

As a caretaker, I definitely won’t be telling people what I know—that would be irresponsible caretaking. But I don’t need to own anything I know, and knowing is not an advantage I possess to exploit, which is typically what people mean when they talk about having secrets.

Knowing I don’t own any of this makes it easy to keep secrets. I have nothing to defend, and nothing to gain.