We are all diplomats

I sometimes hear what my wife is saying, but most of the time I am not sure what she means.

"You should know by now after all these years," said my wife, when I explain that I don't understand what exactly she wants. She expects me to read her thoughts like WikiLeaks, which has put the innermost thoughts of American diplomats on public display.

Sociologists and psychologists say that most of us, most of the time don't really mean what we say in public, like actors or, well, diplomats.

A diplomat carefully weighs his words before uttering anything. I once asked a diplomat (in a far-away land) whether he was enjoying his posting (which was then looked down by the western diplomatic corps as a hardship posting), and he peered at me closely for a few seconds and I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

He then gave me the usual spiel about the long and historic relations and I am sure when ‘bag day' came he must have sent off a missive to headquarters on how ‘dumb' the foreign, expat journalists are.

I once saw a movie titled Liar, Liar which had Jim Carrey playing a lawyer who cannot tell a lie because of a birthday wish his son makes. ‘Make my dad tell the truth always', the boy wishes, and we have this hilarious scene where Carrey beats himself in the bathroom to delay the court proceedings as he suddenly finds himself being very honest and candid about everything, very unlike a lawyer.

Essentially a diplomat's job is to get people to say something that you really shouldn't be saying. A lot of people in high places have said things to American diplomats which they should have only told their shrinks or their priests.

I wonder what would happen if our deep and personal thoughts are somehow recorded and WikiLeaked onto the web for anyone who wishes to read what you really think about them?

It would be the end of civilised society as we know it. Things would get quite tricky and nasty and there would be mayhem on the streets if each of us could read everyone's uncensored thoughts.

In your face

People now walk with their heads bent down to the tiny screens in their hands in this town, but with the personal WikiLeaks being leaked, everyone would be glued to their palms, and logged onto something called ‘In Your Face (Book)'.

You meet someone in the mall food court and start to say, "Hi, how are you today"? and the person would excuse himself thinking, ‘I wonder what he meant by that?", and starts twiddling with his smart phone to get to your wikileaks.

And how can you stop yourself from thinking some really evil thoughts for instance, when your girlfriend breaks this awful news to you as you are relaxing on the balcony of your apartment one nice, warm and sunny day.

"Honeybunch (or whatever absurd, mushy name your girlfriend has for you), my mother plans to transit through Dubai on her way to North Korea, do you mind if she stays with us for a few weeks?"

Your reply would be: "No problem munchkins, we will take the ‘old and bitter' to a night in the desert, she'll love it." What you are really thinking is, ‘We should hire a boat, jam the compass, set her off across the Gulf waters and hope the Revolutionary Guards pick her up."

Next time you say to your colleague, "Congratulations on your promotion. You deserved it. Go get them, girl," she would know exactly what you are thinking (after a bit of research on the Net): "I hope you choke on your pizza and then I will show them what I can do."