Criminals get caught when they brag. They seemingly cannot help it.
All these “hidden camera” interviews where government workers or politicians let the cat out of the bag to a perfect stranger over a drink (with perhaps some sexual attraction thrown in for good measure) are pretty much the same thing. Look at all the leaks to journalists by people whose job it is to keep a secret, yet are somehow incapable of doing it.
Or even consider Hunter Biden, who blabbed endlessly to prostitutes. Wow. Using beautiful women to get powerful men to talk is a technique as old as time. What is astonishing is that it works.
Why?
My wife suggests that for a lot of people, their only real goal is to be respected by others – so blabbing is not a failure, but is instead their very reason for existence: talking is their currency.
I wonder at this, because the single greatest thing I can imagine achieving in my life is that people look at what I have done, and say that it was all G-d’s doing. I want people to see how great the Torah is – since all I am doing is uncovering what is already there (and has been, for thousands of years). My Torah work is published anonymously.
And my perseverance in other things are truly only because I know G-d is with me. So any successes that occur are, in fact, the successes of G-d, and nobody else. If I did not have that relationship with G-d, then I would never have striven and taken these kinds of risks in the first place.
But if you do not have that deep relationship with G-d, then you need to rely on what other people think of you. And to boost yourself in their eyes, you feel the need to brag, to tell things that not everybody knows (and indeed: things you are not supposed to say).
Do I have this right? Is there a better explanation for why people cannot keep their traps shut?