It’s too loud to think it
On Wednesday, I went to a talk given by Frank Warren about the PostSecret Project.
At this point, I’m just going to assume that everyone knows what PostSecret is, if not, the link is on the right. People put their secrets on postcards and send them to this guy named Frank who then posts them on the Internet.
The presentation left me unfulfilled and I’m not completely sure why. There was a heavy tone of the after-school special messages to “be yourself” and “love yourself and others” that seemed far too sappy for my liking.
I felt at times that the talk did a bit of a disservice to the original senders of the postcards by always looking for a deeper meaning behind the words on the card. The people who sent these in were trying to share a part of themselves, to alleviate a burden they had been carrying, not necessarily inspire others.
A number of the cards contain messages that are powerful enough to stand on their own and be inspiring based on their own merit. That is, in essence, why the project has been so successful. In that aspect, perhaps the whole thing is better presented as an art show, something that has been done elsewhere, where people can derive their own deeper meanings and hidden messages from the cards.
At this point, I have to apologize if this post is a bit hacked together. I’m reconstituting the general idea from a text message conversation I had after the show. In the end, we agreed that there was a moral that can come out of the Postsecret project that is worthwhile: the idea that “you’re not alone because we’re all fucked up.” Which is an ever so eloquent way to say that the teensy little dramas or even the big problems we face are far from unique.
That concept marries nicely with another idea I got as I was walking out of the presentation. These secrets being shared could be of the utmost importance to the people sharing them, hell, there were a few girls who stood up during the presentation and admitted suicide attempts and self harm, powerful stuff. But at the same time, in the big picture, those same ultra important secrets don’t mean anything to you or I, the innocent bystander with barely a tenuous connection to the secret bearer. It doesn’t have any great bearing on my life whether some anonymous person has never admitted to her boyfriend her true age or whatever it might be. As important as that is to her, my interest is only curiousity.
Which I guess leads to the final thought I’ve had drumming in my head since the presentation: the idea of not letting your secrets bury you. It’s an admirable idea, to not be bound by what you hide, to be free and true.
Obviously, there’s the big battle coming to an end right now between Conan O’Brien and NBC over the hosting of the Tonight Show. Conan’s done tonight in fact, his last episode as host. It’s been the inevitable conclusion for a couple weeks now and despite this, he continued to do the show, in essence, a lame duck host playing out the rest of his time. Nothing that he did in the past week would really save his job, nor would it seal his fate anymore then it already is. The network is seemingly letting him do whatever he wants to finish off his run and that will be that. With that freedom, he’s probably releasing his funniest material right now. That freedom has truly set him free as a performer and he’s on, he’s in the moment, bringing his ‘A’ game to the stage.
Perhaps a similar effect could be achieved by taking down barriers that exist in life.