I was talking with a friend, and I realized that we are our secrets. If you look at it from an existential point of view, the thing that we use to define ourselves is what separates us from everyone else; especially in a milieu where so very little separates us anymore. The things that are entirely our own are those things that we do not share with anyone else. We call it our inner lives, our self, our person or soul. Sharing secrets is like sharing the very essence of who we are. If we are in denial about our existential existence, then the violation of a secret is like an instant bath in the instability of existential isolation. At once it is the realization that we are alone because we have this secret, and then the treachery at being exposed in such a way, naked and isolated. This a rough idea at best, but it was a strong feeling that I had. The results however was a new perspective on the revolution against duality, and the progress toward enlightenment.
It became a little clearer to me how the self is created and indicated to us. Our very knowledge may in a way work against us, creating this world of pain that we endure daily. In our zeal to be seperate, to be a self, we horde things unto ourselves, just us and not anyone else. Perhaps it is most viceral with our homes, the feeling that someone was among our place of self, and worse took things from that place of self. The reaction seems to be universal. What’s more, once that violation occurs, it seems as though we have lost our self, lost the thing that made us feel separate. I think this is where the paths of existentialism and zen tend to diverge for me. At least, in that I have not seen them merge. Isolation is our natural state, and so to feel that we have lost that is somehow impossible, and against our path toward authentic action. Yet, to attain enlightenment it would be a positive step. Letting go of attachments and cravings.
Perhaps they are one in the same. Taking of our secrets, the violation of the boundary we have set out as self makes us feel our own true isolation. We have created a link, an anchor to the world through these physical structures, and to the people that inhabit them. When we are forced to see how variable and inconsistent that boundary can be, we revert to a state of existential realization, that we are far more separate and alone than we thought. The comfortable barrier that we have created is in fact an illusion in our attempt to delude ourselves from the reality of death, of ending.
So also it is a step toward releasing the self. Though we usually react by gripping even more tightly to the things that we have used to create a self. Physical objects are replaced, and security systems installed. But the taking of a secret is physical. My friend used the phrase “physically violated.” It’s a visceral feeling because it is the removal of the self by a forcible measure. But it can be used as a method for seeing the illusions of the self through these horded secrets, that these really are not a thing in themselves, but our attempt to be separate from everyone else.
The divergence however is even more apparent the more that I think about it. To take a path toward authenticity, I would accept my self in isolation, but to step toward enlightenment, I would look toward the removal of this illusion. It is odd to me that at times these two idea are synchronous, though now that I feel a little bit closer toward understanding the illusion of the self, they are so divergent as to cause me even greater confusion. It may of course be that one or the other, or lamentably both, are incorrect at best, and delusional at worst. But these things are often the province of thought and reason which are the worst offenders in this line of inquiry.
I suppose the most visceral part for me is that I horde my short list of secrets very tightly. I cannot imagine the violation of them. So much that I will freely give away what others might think secret. All is a rouse to hold on even more tightly to my self. That was the greatest understanding that I gained from this little experience. I can feel that tightness in me even now. Lastly, I began to wonder, what of the person that I tell all my secrets to? Is that a healthy step, a positive growth. Or perhaps is that the greatest secret of all? (And also the most hypocritical seeing as I’m about to post this into public space, but the literary whore in me won the day.)
