Nude Pics were the hot news of the week.

And most of the feature news just dwelled on the surface of the issue. Naughty pictures on the internet are not new. Nor are the same style of exposure of some famous people (authorised or unauthorised) in the past. The uproar was that this time around, it had a bit of everything.

Human behaviour gravitates to the love of quantity. So, a bit of everything really grabs us.

And that is how we usually live our lives – just skimming along the surface of things. Because if we stopped and went deeper into things, we will miss out on the next shinning object that pops up.

But the real fun stuff is buried under the surface and if we go deep, the discoveries will enable us to see the surface things in so many levels… and this will eventually lead to appreciation of what life is offering us.

If we go deep into the nude pic saga, we get to discover the richness of the different levels of the whole story.

1 The legal issues. This the most superficial level because the laws that govern the storage and retrieval of digital media is being made up as we go. Most laws are just inventions by those who can anyway.

2. Privacy. If there was nothing to hide, there would not be any privacy issues. In the game of “hide and seek”, the only reason to hide is to be found. On this level, there are two camps. Those who like to hide and the others who like to hack and expose.

3. Nude pictures. Nude pictures were invented long before the iPhone camera. They can be found on walls in caves and ancient places of worship. As soon as some people figured that a whole industry could be founded on nudity, they started to condition the rest of us to hide behind clothes. My grandkids run around naked after their bath and think that is really fun. Unfortunately, someday soon, they will be conditioned to cover up. If nudity was not an industry – then nude pictures would have no value.

4. Spot the difference. This is where we go deeper. We have all seen ourselves naked and at our advanced age, we cannot count the number of naked people we have seen – either fleetingly or in our faces every day… So why do we still have this desire to see nude pics of more people?

It is because as human beings, we thrive on variety. We spend our lives trying to spot the difference between ourselves (plus what we own) and others– as if looking for that part of us that we are missing..

5. The façade of perfection. If someone leaked nude pictures of me that instantly made me the envy of all the other males in this world, my reaction would be to …. Leak more pictures!

We are all afraid of being judged as flawed by others. And it is easy to pick flaws when one has nothing to hide behind. At this “what is wrong with me?” level, we are continuously worried about our flaws becoming exposed.

6. Imagination triumphs reality.  This goes deeper into the human psyche. The only reason we love to take photos and to store them is so that when we look at them at some later date, it triggers the imagination. Pictures are taken to be looked at later. And sometimes a picture can be more real than the actual person…

As technology enables us to explore the path of virtual reality, we are going back to our roots. Imagination is all there is. Reality is only imagined.

7. We can go deeper. But we won’t at this stage,

If you find the chance to get unlimited use of an elevator in a skyscraper, go right up to the top to enjoy the view. Then go down each level at a time and notice how the view changes. And as you hit the bottom level, marvel at how they dug such a big hole and the structure that supports the whole building above.

Then go up the levels again and notice how your appreciation of the building and the views change.

This is what happens when you are able to go deep in life – rather than just skim along the surface,