Everyday Canvas

Someone's Story

Prompt: “It's a privilege to bear witness to someone's story when they may not have had the chance to tell it before.” Lindy Alexander
What are your thoughts on this?

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A privilege? I rather see it as a double-edged sword. What if they have sworn you to secrecy and then tell you that they have been or are killers?

True, an unscrupulous journalist would love to be the one to listen to such a thing, imagining the acclaim and awards to come as the result of such an occurrence. In my case, since I am not such a journalist, I would take such a privilege with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, to be considered a friend and be told of one’s innermost secrets or a story is a reward in itself for it punctuates my trustworthiness. In such a case, as a good secret keeper, I would never tell or talk about something told to me in confidence, but even this situation has its thorns. What if the secret is found out by someone else by chance or in some other way? Wouldn’t my friend become suspicious that I blurted her secret story out?

In another set-up, if the story is universal and I am the first to hear it, that would be okay, too, but it is still not a privilege. The only privilege I can think of would be in this situation where the person with the story is about to die and has entrusted me with his story to be told after his death. Yet, that too would result in raised eyebrows later since the person who the story is about would be dead and cannot validate my claims. As I said before, this so-called privilege is a double-edged sword and both sides of it can cut deeply into my flesh.