PostSecret

To tell you what I'm thinking, I have to give you a little background. I found a blog one day, while I was following a train of blogs, called PostSecret. Basically, people send their secrets in the mail on one side of a post card to this one man, and he posts them on his blog for public anonymity. I love it. These come from people from all over, from all sorts of backgrounds. Some are happy, some are sad, or angry, or silly, some are probably confessions of illegal acts, to be honest. I feel connected to people by reading their secrets; I think it helps people feel whole and part of a world of people just like them. Sometimes it's easier to deal with an emotion if you're not the only one who knows it--and sometimes you don't want people you know to know. That's all not very important, but right now I thought I'd tell you what PostSecret is before telling you about one I really liked today.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

I was reading PostSecret's myspace blog today and ran across a post card I found particularly strange:

The main reason I found it strange was because I couldn't really read it. I deciphered, "I wish my mother...would die...something something...myself without hurting anyone." Yeesh, kind of sad, so I moved on. I don't like dwelling too much on the really sad ones.

But then I read the train of emails that came after it.

-----Email Message-----

Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 4:14 PM

I too was able to decipher the message. There will always be someone who would be hurt by your death.

-----Email Message-----

Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 6:33 PM

Subject: an inconvenient secret

I'm sure you won't post this email:The above is complete BS. There ARE in fact people whose death would not be noticed by even a single human being, much less cause anyone grief. This doesn't fit the feel-good ethos of PostSecret, but it's a brutal and tragic fact of modern life.

-----Email Message-----

Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 6:24 PM

Subject: Re:an inconvenient secret

The people the person might be hurting aren't just people in their past, but people who would have been in their future. It's within that person's power to turn their life around and help other people. It's those people who would be hurting - folks that haven't met them yet.

I found the last email so relieving, inspiring, and telling. I've never quite thought of it that way. I think a lot of people worry that if they were to die today, no one would care. A lot of other people worry that if they were to die today, only 2 people would notice. They feel like their lives mean nothing to anyone. Maybe that's true; I'm not sure I really sympathize with people who worry about that part of it, but this person really puts it in perspective by pointing out that those who could have been involved with their future suffer too. I also love, LOVE that they say it's within that person's power to turn their life around and help other people--so more people in the present can be touched by their living life, and consequently, would be saddened by that person's death (however inconsequential that really is).

Oh, Post Secret... Every Sunday they post new cards. I always feel sort of enlightened after reading them.