Several years ago, I began asking my friends and family to tell me their passwords. I had come to believe that these tiny personalized codes get a bum rap. Yes, I understand why passwords are universally hated: the strains they put on our memory, the endless demand to update them, their sheer number. I hate them too. But there is more to passwords than their annoyance. In the fact that we construct them so that we (and only we) will remember them, they take on secret lives. Many of our passwords are filled with suffering, mischief, sometimes even poetry. Often they have rich backstories. There was the former prisoner whose password includes what used to be his identification number (“a reminder not to go back”); the childless 45-year-old whose password is the name of the baby boy she lost (“my way of trying to keep him alive, I guess”). Sometimes the passwords were playful. Several people said they used incorrect for theirs so that when they forgot it, the software automatically gave them the right one (“your password is incorrect”).

Some passwords were striking for their creativity, folding big thoughts down into tidy little codes. After being inspired by Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Cortni Kerr, a running partner of mine, began using Wwdol3, which stood for “What would Sheryl Sandberg do” plus “13” for the year (2013) of the password’s creation. TnsitTpsif was the password of another friend, a computer scientist who loves wordplay. It stands for “The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is false,” which in philosophy is called a liar’s paradox. For my friend, it was a playful reference to the knots that language can tie.

While asking strangers about their passwords is a touchy proposition, it’s not every day that you come across a conversation topic that teaches you new things about people you’ve known for years.

The 4622 that my wife uses in her passwords was not just the address of her own father’s childhood home but also a reminder of his weakness and strength. Apparently when the former 270-pound football standout, a scholarship athlete and the pride of his working-class neighborhood in west Tulsa, was a small boy, he had to sing his home address (4622 South 28th West Avenue) in one full breath rather than try to say it normally, otherwise, his stutter (口吃) would trip him up.