why i love Postsecret

Do you really think you're so different from me? From anyone? Newsflash you're really not. I have recently made one of the most comforting and at the same time, most frightening realizations of my life: We are all the same. At our very core, we share something that links us together, something that we can't ever lose or give away or have taken from us. We sit here, at our very worst, thinking that nobody thinks or feels the same things we do. When it comes down to those things that beat at the backdoor of your mind until you let them in you're not alone in that. I've seen it. Humanity at its most basic and essential point is flawed, is broken. And it's okay. Anything you see anyone do or say you have the potential to do or say and you know you've thought about it. I'm sure if you've talked to me at all in the last couple of months or if you've seen my myspace, you've noticed that I have become really interested in this whole "Postsecret" phenomenon. It's an artist who started asking people to decorate a blank postcard and write their darkest secret on it and then mail it to him anonymously. At first it was a blog online, then he started getting so many from all over the world that it became a traveling art exhibit and now, it's a book. I bought it at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and have spent I don't even know how much time reading it and going over and over it since I got it. It's inspiring, it's heartbreaking, it's comforting. It is humanity raw. Every topic is covered from eating disorders, adultery & molestation to finding peace, happiness & love for the first time in life. When I first started reading it, I tried to think of what secret I could send in what would I have to say? But I quickly realized that my secrets are already in there. Many of them. And I didn't even have to send in a card. It's because we're not alone. Someone else feels what you feel, they see life how you see it. They struggle with depression, anxiety, suicide, but they also feel love and joy and peace. It's the greatest paradox I've seen where we love deeply, but we hurt fiercely. Why have we never realized these things before? Why do we think it will be better for us to act like we are alone in these things? Why do I feel more comfortable holding it in? Why has it become socially acceptable to hide the worst things about you? It's awful because what I found recently is that if you open up about some of the darkest things in your life, you will find that whoever you open up to has some dark things of their own that they have just been craving to feel comfortable enough to open up to someone about. And you can't judge people, no matter what. Because when it comes down to it, you've been there too. Even if you haven't actually done what they're done necessarily, you've thought about it. You see a piece of yourself in them. I watched the movie Capote last weekend. And it's a great movie, but I was left at the end of it feeling so lost. Truman Capote devoted 4 years of his life to learning about what happened to this family that was brutally murdered in Kansas. He paid to have unlimited visitation rights to the murderers. He got to know them, became friends with them. And in the end, he never wrote another book after In Cold Blood. It destroyed him. I think it's hard to see people like that man, Perry Smith, who killed that family and to relate to him somewhat to see yourself in him and to see that you could've been exactly where he is. That's why it's scary to see that we are all the same. Because we are all so flawed. But embrace it, don't be afraid of it. Because it is what holds us all together. It is what makes life what it is. So whoever you are, wherever your life has left you, don't be afraid don't feel alone. Because I've been there too. And if I haven't been exactly where you are, I've hurt like you hurt. I've been happy like you're happy. I've been through so many emotions and feelings and fears and thoughts. I've been there. And what I'm realizing every single day is that so has everyone else.




"...But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart."
-Speaker for the Dead