Secrets are Funny Things

A Cunning Man's Journal

Secrets are funny things. At this point, I’ve forgotten more of them than I currently keep, which is probably just as well. It’s not just the secrets from other lives that slip away, but even the ones shared in this life. Most of the time, it’s simply a matter of not finding what people have to say all that interesting. The truth is, I’ve kept far more of other people’s secrets than my own. And over time, they blur together into a fog of trivialities and forgotten details—whispers that were once so urgent to someone else, but never quite made an impact on me. It’s odd how some things are so delicate and huge for certain people, yet the very same matters can seem entirely trivial to others. I suppose that’s always been the case.

What weighs heavily on one person’s shoulders can barely graze the next. For me, I’ve always been the stable one. There’s a certain use in that. I can take on more responsibility than most, but there’s a price. The weak tend to cling to stability like a life raft, and I’ve found myself surrounded by those who can’t quite stand on their own. That’s another funny thing about getting older, isn’t it? You notice things about the elderly that start to make sense as the years pass. Patience, for one, seems to go out the window. I’ve seen it time and again. The older people get, the less they seem to care about the trivialities of others’ dramas. It’s as if, after so many years of carrying other people’s burdens, they finally allow themselves the freedom to just stop giving a damn. It’s not that they don’t care about anything, but their tolerance for nonsense?

Well, that seems to evaporate. And I can understand why. There’s a beauty in it, really. Take the old man’s slippers, for instance. Hideous things. But oh, so comfortable. That’s what life becomes about after a while—the comfort over the appearance, the easy over the complicated. We spend so much of our lives worrying about how things look, how they come across, and then one day, you wake up and realize you just want to be comfortable. The fuss, the performance, it all starts to fade. Maybe that’s why old people seem to grow bolder, sharper in their words.

They’ve earned the right to let go of what doesn’t matter, to embrace the simplicity of an easy life. I’m not quite there yet, but I can feel it creeping in. The things that once demanded so much energy—keeping everyone else’s secrets, minding everyone else’s business—don’t feel as pressing anymore. It’s freeing, in a way, though it does leave me questioning what I want to carry forward. What’s worth holding on to, and what can be left behind, forgotten like all those secrets that once seemed so important?

I suppose the real secret is this: you don’t need to keep everything. Some things are meant to slip away, to lighten the load. And the older you get, the more you realize how little you truly need to hold on to.