MY SECRET LIFE
Saturday, Mar. 14, 2020
What are my secrets?
What are your secrets?
What is my secret life?
I’m no Leonard Cohen addict, but certainly a fan of his brilliance, his poetry. I’ve owned The Essential Leonard Cohen album since it came out in 2002, but haven’t played it often. I’ve had it loaded on my phone and my iPod – for listening on the treadmill or out walking.
Recently it seems my iPod-shuffle has been playing one tune more often. I’ve been enjoying – some lyrics resonating more than before.
The title, In My Secret Life, seems to illustrate a confession of sorts from Cohen – and I think the reason these lyrics resonate with me, and likely for many of us too; there are elements of our life and how we’ve lived it, our mind and things we think, our record of what we’ve said and done as well as what we’ve not mentioned, not done, or not acted upon which form our legacy.
It’s who we are: the secret, and the non-secret portions of our lives.
We are all secrets, are we not?
We reveal bits and bytes, glimpses, and insights.
We show much more by our actions and inactions, by what people see or think they see. Mark Twain said it well (he said more, of course, on this subject, but I’ve elected to select this passage):
“When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.”
