2You can't tell your friends. Cross your heart and hope to die. Tonight we will open a chamber that has up until now been locked away in the dusty archives of time.
Unfortunately ladies, gentlemen and fellow readers, my fate is sealed. As the bearer of such classified information I am programmed to self-destruct in 8 minutes. But you wont keep it will you? You will go out and blab to the 1st person to know? You can't help yourself; you're only human.
I can't trust you can I? It just the way it is- secrets fascinate us. We love to get together and prise open the door to a chamber of secrets. To stare into the darkness and hope that something will emerge. Just what is wrong with this?... nothing!
From the time the first secret was whispered in a primeval cave by Krugg the caveman, secrets have lived in our everyday existence. You know the feeling, the rush of blood, the adolescent giggle; the serious face of one entrusted with such a weighty secret.
Of course the little secrets don't really matter. Let's face it, we know who is with who in our dreary little lives. We know that Julie fell asleep in chemistry and we tested her curiously acidic saliva as she drooled over the bench.
We know the school canteen has a suspicious arrangement with the local pound- how else can we explain the hot dogs? BUT- what about the big secrets, the ones that dominate our world.
Surely these secrets are burning issues? Profound mysteries? Things hidden from us for sinister purposes? Sometimes.
The way I see it is there are 5 types of secrets. Silly secrets personal secrets proven secrets secrets that are not really secret but are rendered secret because we didn't want to know and finally Secrets that should be exposed.
Silly secrets-Let's be honest. The chamber of secrets is often a mad house. Why do we fill up our lives with such trivialities? Publications such as New Idea and That's Life offer us a smorgasbord of inane secrets to spice up our obviously pathetic lives. We can learn such universal truths such as the secret medicinal practices of the Warne household. But the really sad thing about these secrets is, sometimes they just never go away. They still appear around the place. Did Joe the Cameraman really offer a bit of amateur commentary? Did the Chinese Submarines kidnap Harold Holt? What happened at Roswell? And the million dollar question: Is Elvis Still Alive? We want to know.
Personal secrets are secrets because they should be. We have no right to pry into the lives of any person, especially public figures that already have so little privacy. This chamber of secrets should be kept locked. Do we need to see grainy photos of Catherine Zeta Jones stuffing wedding cake down her throat? Did we need to spoil Cheryl Kernot's hard work on her Autobiography by unearthing an ancient Affair with Gareth Evans and then having the gall to whinge because the book wasn't "tell all." If it happened to me I wouldn't get mad. I'd get even! I would track down the owners of those trashy magazines, search through their garbage, and stake out their homes. When I found out their juicy secrets I would publish them on the web. Can you just imagine Rupert's face when he sees a fuzzy picture of him picking his nose with the headline "Murdoch picks a corporate winner- an exclusive from his secluded hideaway."
When is a secret not a secret? Answer no 1. When every intelligent human on the earth knows it isn't true! It's already proven! Just a few examples to clear away the cobwebs and air out this chamber of no secrets. Einstein was really, really smart. He was never poor at school. He entered the prestigious Sorbonne University 2 years earlier than his peers. He wasn't as brilliant in French and English as science, but hey he spoke German well enough. Princess Anastasia, daughter of the Romanovs is most definitely dead. 3 bullet holes and a DNA test can't be wrong! The famous footage of the Lochness monster and the Yeti are hoaxes. The young guys who created it are nearly pensioners. They confessed decades ago. So why do we still watch it on great secrets of the world? Statistically the Bermuda triangle has less boating accidents and plane disappearances than the North Sea and the East Coast of America. The Australian Sceptics Association. has offered $1 million to anyone that can prove psychic ability. This was 10 years ago, noone has claimed it, very few have tried. I would have thought that everyone's favourite clairvoyant, Fiona from Women's Day, who tells her readers their partner's innermost secrets would love to pick up a cool million. Why do we persist in telling and listening to this stuff? I guess we don't like to get in the way of a good secret.
Classification no 4. Realities we make secret. Why, with so many secrets around do we pretend we don't know about something when we do? "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was a parking spot for handicapped people" or "Yes, I worked near Auschwitz, Yes, I saw the one way train trips. Yes, I saw the columns of smoke and ash, but I never knew what was happening.
And finally secret ID 5, the secrets that should be exposed. This chamber of secrets needs dismantling. The secrets that exist between the walls of this craftily built structure must be aired. Some secrets should be secrets no longer. These secrets impact on us. They hamper our sense of fairness, and social justice. Why is George W. Bush so keen to crush Saddamn Hussein "right now"? What does he know? What does he want? What has John Howard promised? What do we gain for our cringing alliance to the US? Closer to is sorry such a hard word to say? Why do CEO's of big companies get huge bonuses when they leave a failing company? Why do some radio talk show hosts have such influence over our elected politicians and officials? Why do indigenous Australians have an average life span of 20 years less than other Australians do?
I would answer all these sombre questions, and believe me I do have the answers, but alas, my time is up. These secrets are safe now with me. Your lives will be spared and I will be spared destruction. You can go on living with these chambers of secrets. But you won't, will you? You can't help yourself. You have to know..