Keeping secrets can be difficult
KARACHI: Keeping secrets can be difficult and only few people are able to keep up with the moral responsibility that comes along, as it implies that someone has truly trusted us enough. Losing their trust would mean losing a person. Secrets are a kind of contract which must be kept. Guarding a secret is the same as guarding one’s chastity. Those who keep a secret prove themselves trustworthy. Conversely, those who spill the beans damage their own honour, reputation and credibility.
Bear in mind that those who reveal one’s secrets to others, cannot be trusted to keep anybody’s secrets regardless of the relationship or the equation they share with the person. Further, it takes a great deal of willpower and determination not to reveal someone’s secrets to others. But if keeping a secret harms you or any innocent person then you must think over and consult the person before using your own judgment. It is one among the many basic moral values that the younger generation has let go. Socrates raised the question, should one return the sword one has taken on loan from someone else even when the latter has lost his mind. Here one has to apply one’s own judgment. It will not be appropriate to return the sword to its owner when he has lost his mind.
Dua Fasih
Published in The Express Tribune, October 26th, 2018.
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