On Sneakiness: Reclaiming the art of being sneaky for good, not evil

Sneak­i­ness is often asso­ci­ated with bad­ness. For exam­ple, we all know that rob­bers sneak about in the night and mice sneak into kitchens to steal crumbs. We believe that to sneak is to per­form an act of deceit or betrayal. But per­haps it is not the sneak­i­ness that is evil here. A rob­ber could still rob houses at night by being loud and obvi­ous rather than sneaky. And mice could still enter a kitchen with fan­fare and trum­pets rather than with sneak­i­ness. It’s just that sneak­i­ness makes it eas­ier for bad­ness to go unnoticed.

There are plenty of good peo­ple who some­times act sneak­ily. Bal­leri­nas, for exam­ple. They sneak across the bal­let stage on their tippy toes try­ing not to be heard. And yet bal­leri­nas are good peo­ple, even if their clothes are often a few sizes too small for them. This in itself almost proves the point – sneak­i­ness doesn’t cause bad­ness, bad­ness causes badness.

So it is about time we reclaimed the art of being sneaky to the good side of the force. And there are plenty of good rea­sons to be sneaky. For exam­ple, you may want to sneak a bunch of flow­ers into the let­ter­box of your favourite boy/girl. Or you may want to sneak up on a friend with hic­cups and scare them. Or you may want to sneak away from your mother before you hurt her feel­ings by say­ing you don’t like it when she licks a tis­sue and cleans your face.

Now some peo­ple say that sneak­i­ness is used to spy on peo­ple. And spy­ing is bad. But spy­ing, like sneak­ing, can be good. Just think of all the good spies there are – Maxwell Smart, Har­riet the Spy, the Spy Kids and the Spy Kids in 3D, among many oth­ers. Even the Famous Five did their fair share of spy­ing and those kids were made of pure good.

So if we are going to prop­erly reclaim sneak­i­ness from the kid­nap­pers and politi­cians of the world, we must learn the art of sneak­ing inside out. And despite all this talk of creep­ing about in the dark, the best way to be sneaky is not to be sneaky at all. Because the best sneak­ing hap­pens when nobody realises there’s sneak­ing afoot.

Firstly, do not walk around on your tippy toes with a hunched back. This is a dead give­away that some­one is being sneaky. Walk with your back straight like a light­house and your feet flat like the ocean. No one ever sus­pects right angles of being sneaky. Also, don’t smile while you’re sneak­ing. Smil­ing is for peo­ple who have some­thing to hide. And for happy peo­ple. But mostly for those hid­ing something.

Sec­ondly, don’t try to be sneaky by hid­ing. Only car­toon char­ac­ters can get away with car­ry­ing a bush around and hid­ing behind it when­ever any­one looks at them.

As you can see above, blend­ing in with your sur­round­ings is the best way to be sneaky. It’s the per­fect way to hide the fact that there’s sneak­ing afoot. So if you’re at a skate­board ramp, strap on some kneepads. If you’re in a library, talk in a hushed voice when you’re on the phone. If you’re at the bal­let, walk around on your tippy toes. Actu­ally scrap that last one.

If we all con­cen­trate on being sneaky in the appro­pri­ate ways and for the appro­pri­ate rea­sons, I’m con­fi­dent we can take sneak­i­ness back from the rodents and bogey­men of soci­ety and move about unno­ticed (ie. sneak) in the name of good, not evil. Who knows, sneak­i­ness may even save the world one day. Although the sneak­i­ness involved in sav­ing the world would prob­a­bly be so excel­lent that we wouldn’t even realise there was sneak­ing afoot.

(Spe­cial thanks to Leanne Hall for her appear­ance in the controlled-sneaking exper­i­ment photos)