Wouldn’t it be nice to bring down all the barriers, if only for a
while? To say what’s on your mind, what’s drawing you here,
what’s pulling you away…

Imagine, a whole day dedicate to Openness, people encouraged to express their thoughts honestly, without fear of any consequences, as if they’re on a plane about to crash. Comments, complaints, secrets, arguments, past lies, unshaped wishes and dreams, disguised compromises; they would all rise to the surface as we’d empty our overfilled deposits to start again.

Taking any appropriate action would be strictly prohibited that
day: no dismissals, lawsuits, divorces, violent attacks. Then,
just before going to sleep, we’d all take a magic potion to wipe
the past few hours from memory. The next morning, life would be
as it always was- apart from the occasional, strangely familiar though inexplicable dream.

Do you think we’d still sense the difference? A certain feeling of weightlessness? Would the temporary release from guilt and repressed emotions make us better people? Or we’d become much worse, totally careless, uninhibited and dangerous, without the heavy accumulation of regret holding us in place?

No I don’t believe in character-forming restraint. Being
ourselves would be a welcome alternative to routine pretension, notwithstanding the monsters we’d have to face.