May 8th, 2006 by Jesse Moore
I’ve made reference to PostSecret before, usually just as a reference to one of my favorite stops on the internet superhighway. PostSecret is a photo blog of postcards created and sent in anonymously - the only requirement is that the sender reveal a secret - perhaps something they haven’t admitted to anyone else, perhaps something they’ve only recently realized about themselves. It’s a little voyeuristic - reading the secrets of others, but it can also be therepuetic - not only a sense of levity for the sender, but soothing to readers that may hold the same thoughts captive.
The postcard above was the first one that I’ve seen that I could have sent in. I didn’t, but I should have. I graduated from college with a degree in English Literature seven years ago, and I’ve struggled ever since to pick up a pen or a book. I’m not sure if I can explain why, but I’m sure it’s linked to the hundreds of papers I wrote on topics I didn’t care about, or the thousands of pages I read regarding the same. Later today I’ll change the poem on the “Words” page to something I wrote five years ago on this sentiment, where I summise that outside forces “tuned the dude out of his flow and its harder to find something when you didn’t value it and make it work…” (rest of the poem HERE).
My thanks to the sender of this postcard. I struggle as well. I only hope that I don’t deteriorate to the point that I have to send in a postcard revealing that I have a blog that I haven’t posted to in five years…
The thing is… if you end up posting in your blog as a result of feeling obligated to do so, then doesn’t that defeat some of the purpose? What is the purpose? Who is your intended audience? Is it more for you or is it for someone else?
I don’t think that it defeats the purpose to post on the blog because I feel obligated to - I feel the same way about shaving sometimes, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary. As to my purpose, well, this is meant to be my slate - perhaps the only opportunity I may have in a day to write anything cohesive at all. I don’t have an intended audience - I have an accidental audience, which may keep me (at times) from saying everything I want to say. And I wouldn’t say that I write the blog for me - I read the comments for me. Writing a post in and of itself isn’t fulfilling until I get some amount of feedback (which should guilt the rest of you into commenting more
). Thanks for commenting Alvin.
Yes!! (I believe in feedback, and I completely “get” what you’re saying about it!)
Hopefully we will all “step up” and give more feedback.
(not guilted though! lol)
BTW, Did you see that this particular “postcard” that you wrote about, had a “p.s.” added to it, by the PostSecret site manager?
Not sure how the “p.s.” figures into the orginal sender’s “drama”…but in some weird sense it seemed to me, that the “p.s” should actually be an encouragement to you about your writing. (there’s hope in the revealed truth.)
Anyway–I hope you don’t stop writing “here”, I find your blog very refreshing.
Glad you re-posted the PostSecret site. I saved it, to check back on.
It does make you consider what your own postcard would say…hmm.