I always wanted a secret when I was a kid; something to divulge in moments of intimacy, something to whisper. I used to make up lame secrets and confide them to whoever would listen. Now I’ve managed to get myself a few real ones that are a bit beefier, and have earned a reputation for being a tight-lipped taciturn. But I think while I may have a few bones of a skeleton in the closet it’s just because I’m hesitant to open the door that people assume there’s an entire graveyard inside.

People love the idea of a secret more than actual secrets themselves. When all is laid out on the table the intrigue is lost, but when a secret is secret it is irresistible. Frank Warren’s website PostSecret publishes 20 new secrets selected from about 10 000 anonymous senders every week, such as the ones reproduced here. It is one of the most visited blogs in the world, with about 3 million hits a month.

Warren has been criticized for opening a Pandora’s box by encouraging troubled individuals to share their innermost demons without the support of trained clinicians, but mostly he is hailed as a “unique global guru,” “the most trusted stranger in America,” “today's media ‘it’ boy” and “father confessor of the world wide web.”

He started PostSecret two years ago as part of a community art project, handing out 3000 self-addressed postcards asking strangers to anonymously confess something they had never shared with anyone before. About 100 of the original postcards came back, but strangely, people around the world began sending him their own handmade, graphically illustrated confessions and within a year he had 10,000. In the US there are currently touring exhibitions of the best cards and the third book is in the pipeline for publication.

The success is accountable to the cocktail of voyeurism, therapy and art, and the basis of anonymity. Secrets are things that are not meant to be known and they only remain so if they are kept secret. The messages on Warren’s cards are still secrets: they are intriguing because readers do not know anything about the senders.



QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“How can we expect another to keep our secret if we cannot keep it ourselves?”

(Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld 1613-1680)