private mail

BY THOMPSON NGUYEN

Who are you more likely to tell your most coveted secrets to?

Is it Debbie; your bestest bud in the whole wide world?

Perhaps it‘s your parents? Your siblings? Aunt Bertha?

Or is it safer to trust a bunch of strangers? And not just a couple strangers you meet on the bus, but perhaps you’d like to share that secret with the whole world?

As surprising as it may be, there are a large number of people who would choose the latter. Thousands of secrets are shared on Postsecret.com, a world-wide art project. It works with the contribution of secrets from its readers. People are encouraged to write a secret on one side of a postcard and mail it to the creator of this project, Frank Warren. Some of these are shocking, some are disturbing, some are heartwarming and some are just plain hilarious. Warren posts the mail every week on the Post Secret site and also in print. He has about four books filled with secrets received from men and women across the globe which are fascinating to look at. The amazing thing is that these secrets are sent anonymously; someone has given out a tiny piece of their personal life to the world and we may never know who that person is.

Perhaps that is the beauty of this project. This way one can find an outlet to detach themselves from a secret that has been confining them.

Everyone has a secret that they keep far back in the mind. And perhaps it is nothing too serious, but it may be something we do not want to share with the people in our lives. They know who we are. They know our faces, our name, our mannerisms… They own so much of us and perhaps if we share even more of ourselves it can be far too dangerous. Based on what they have and what we choose to give them, they can judge us. Even worse, they may share what we trusted them with to others. As a result, we may be judged by even more people who can make you feel incredibly vulnerable.

By sharing our deepest secrets, we give ourselves to this art project. However, it is Post Secret that provides us with something as well. It is where you share that part of yourself with strangers who will not judge you and think any less of you. In fact, readers may actually relate to you. They may feel a special closeness or bond to your secret; they feel this ‘anonymous intimacy’ between their life and the piece that you’ve shared.

Hence, Post Secret is an incredible project where you can dive into the lives of people who you have never met. Or perhaps you have, and Debbie has some skeletons she is not sharing with you. Be sure to check out Postsecret.com to find if she’s hiding anything from you. Or you may want to visit because you finally want to stop hiding everything from her. Keep in mind: friends make secrets!

What is your secret?