Our secrets are our sickness

As Jean Paul Sartre reminded us, we are our choices, “nous sommes nos choix.” At 13 I realized, in 1983, that privacy is only ever possible if no one cares at all about your business. Everyone should tell their kids: live your life as though spied upon by snitches. And if you’re nasty, own it. Since actual spies use your secrets against you for leverage, then it’s a thing. The truth always comes out; also, they almost never come out in your best interest or favor. Our secrets are our sickness. In PR, they call it living as though everything you do is constantly plastered onto the Jumbotron during the Big Game, the Superbowl. Deceit and hypocrisy are never a winning combination for a life well-lived.