Trading secrets
I’ll bet that even the person who detests a scandal will feel his ears prick up at the sound of a whispered admission.
What is it about people and secrets? What makes us want to pass them on, guard them or bury them? Even the word ‘secret’ sounds like a Pandora’s box hissing open to reveal guilty delights after a thousand years in the dark.
I never knew I had a fascination with secrets until I got hooked on PostSecret.
Some secrets give me goosebumps, others make my chest swell with pride, still others make me giggle and a few have made me squirm.
I’m not sure why, but since that first glimpse into the souls of strangers through the window of the postcard, I’ve visited PostSecret every week for more. Is it pure voyeurism that entices me back? Is it the lure of being a step closer to understanding the inner workings of humanity? Are those secrets my secrets too?
Reading the Sunday Secrets for the first time gives me a buzz, but it’s not only the secrets themselves that give me food for thought.
I’ve never heard of another project that people have contributed to on such a scale when there was nothing in it for them. Perhaps some send in their secrets for the (almost journalistic) pleasure of seeing their handwriting in a public domain, a kind of warped week of fame where no one but you knows you’ve been published. Maybe people feel that by writing down their hopes and fears, then releasing them, their hopes will materialise and their fears will dissolve.
All of the Sunday secrets seem to link people. Not only do those sharing their secrets usually have hidden messages for their mothers, lovers, friends, but Frank, the brains behind the site, arranges the messages online so that, even though the secrets are different, their thematic links show that we are all walking the same earth.
I’ve come to realise that I don’t have a fascination with secrets, I have a fascination with humanity.
As a writer, PostSecret has taught me a few lessons that are difficult to pick up at school. The first is that less is always more; just as the old cliché goes that a picture tells a thousand words, so does a short sentence paint a vivid picture. The second is that we should watch the people around us whenever we get the chance; PostSecret has proven that ordinary people really do have extraordinary stories. And everyone has at least one good secret.
picture / scol22 / stock.xchang
