Some things are better left...

There are a lot of things that get left unsaid or unexplored that would undoubtedly be extremely interesting conversation pieces or philosophical points of departure if only we were brave enough to discuss them. They are the things that lurk below the surface of our public lives like Sunday surcharge fine print on a laminated Willoughby Road menu.

Everybody has an idea of what I'm talking about. Those small feelings you get, often on a Sunday afternoon after being presented with a bill 25% higher than you expected, that make you secretly ashamed not just because you thought them, but also because, having thought them, you tend to wallow in them. Often with no tangible beginning, they get drawn out to preposterous lengths as self-indulgence and narcissism take hold.

These flights of fancy may just begin with imagining how bad it would be if something awful was to happen to your significant other/family/friend/pet/treasured trading card. Quickly this train of thought derails into thinking about how sad you'd be, and how much attention people would pay you as a result of the terrible tragedy. You imagine how stoic you'd be. Only your closest friends would realise how torn up inside you were. They'd have to explain to people at parties why you had the thousand-yard stare. You imagine the respect these people would give you when they heard the bad news, saying to each other: "He/she is taking it so well." You imagine walks in parks that don't even exist, and how your inner turmoil would be sharply at odds with the vitality of life around you. You imagine Bittersweet Symphony playing in the background as you watch the ducks move effortlessly across the glassy still water of the pond. Your perspective would be amazing. No one else would realise that the ducks were a poignant symbol that life goes on no matter what. You return to the office job you don't even have much earlier than your colleagues expect and turn in fantastic work with a shrug that says: "Nothing really matters anymore, but I can deal."

But we very rarely talk about these feelings. We talk about the silly dreams we have or how annoying the girl at the check out was today because she said "youse".

We don't mention these thoughts because we just can't take the risk that, although we feel pretty well-adjusted, we are not normal. We worry that divulging these little secrets to others will expose that under our reasonably normal facades we are, in fact, cripplingly and malevolently selfish.

But we aren't. Everyone thinks this way from time to time. We should discuss them. After all, they're quite funny (provided you aren't the person killed in the plane/car/rotunda accident). Openly discussing these foibles could bring us all closer together, by showing us that deep down, we all star in our own movies, and all secretly want them to be dramatic and brimming with pathos.

As I write this, I realise that there is a second category of information we all keep to ourselves. These are those stories or interesting facts we don't pass on because we are ashamed to reveal the source. I'd give an example, but I can't because I heard it at a Young Liberals function.