In November 2004 Frank Warren had an idea for a community art project. He left 3,000 self-addressed postcards everywhere-at bus stops, in library books, at art galleries. He asked people to write down secrets they had never told anyone and drop them in the mail.
Such a small beginning for a project that has become an international phenomenon. Warren was surprised to discover that long after his 3,000 postcards had been returned to him, more continued to flow in-homemade postcards conveying the deepest secrets of their writers.
Warren continues to accumulate about 400 postcards a week, and posts about 20 every Sunday on his blog, postsecret.blogspot.com, which is the third most popular on the Internet. He also published a book in December, which quickly became a best-seller on Amazon. The book contains some of the most popular cards and perviously unseen ones. He even started a touring exhibit of the postcards, which recently ended its first stint after a successful showing.
In the book clinical psychologist Anne Fisher calls Frank Warren “the most trusted stranger in America.” People all over the world have sent Warren postcards confessing their deepest hurts, fears, happinesses, regrets and indulgences.
Warren encourages the messages written on the postcards to be in as few words as possible so nothing is known about the authors. There are no clues or back stories to explain. Some are cryptic and vague. So what is the appeal? The anonymity of the postcards allows us to contemplate the stories behind them. Some I have seen and thought, I could’ve written that myself. Some I’ve looked at and thought, perhaps my friend? Perhaps a family member?
Warren refers to his project as healing through art. PostSecret encourages us to face the ghosts of our pasts that still tug at the back of our shirts and tread on our heels when we go about our daily lives. Maybe an action as small as mailing an anonymous postcard to a curious stranger is all it takes to release those ghosts.
Perhaps the idea of creating a postcard will open the door for a different, unintended course of action. It could involve taking a chance. It could allow its author to breathe. It could invite something beautiful.
One woman wrote to Frank that she created six postcards filled with things she was afraid to share with her boyfriend, but on the day she planned to mail them, she left them on his pillow instead. Her boyfriend came to her office later that day and asked her to marry him.
Not to be misleading, the majority of the postcards are not uplifting or positive, but frightening, disturbing, haunting, shameful and saddening. Some are deeply personal, while others are nearly universal truths that no one ever admits. Despite how deeply striking some can be, all convey a sense of freedom, a sense of peeling away a dim veil that has clouded their authors’ consciences for years.
Some cards are shocking. One, in stark black and white, says, “He’s been in prison for two years because of what I did. Nine more to go.” One, with a colorful floral background, says, “I wished on a dandelion for my husband to die.”
Certain cards are simply amusing. One, written on a flattened Starbucks cup, says, “I give decaf to customers who are rude to me!”
Other cards are so vague, but so poignant, that I ache to know the stories behind them. An old photo of a cheap motel says on it, “When we were here, I was happy.”
The saddest ones seem utterly hopeless. One says, “Three years ago I tried to kill myself. Now I’m 18 and people say I’m happy, but I still want to die.” Another, written in Braille, says, “God is the only one who loves me. No one else on Earth does.” Another in simple black type says, “I still haven’t told my father I have the same disease that killed my mother.”
Reading anonymous secrets of real people allows us to sympathize with them all, without the outward prejudices that form barriers between people in daily life. When the physical is stripped away and the internal turned inside-out, what’s left is a hidden cry we’re all harboring in some shape. It is these cries, these secrets, which make us truly unique, not our nationality, age, gender, sexuality, nor our likes and dislikes.
The PostSecret book is more powerful than any novel I have read, and each Sunday I look forward to Warren’s online posts. Many bring tears and many bring a feeling of hopefulness, empowerment for whomever wrote the postcards. I think I’m searching for the courage to create a postcard of my own, or perhaps even searching the new postcards for a secret I recognize.
Someone commented on the Web site that “Because of it, I am falling in love with the world again.” PostSecret shows us, in the simplest way imaginable, what it means to be human. It shows us that what makes us different is, in actuality, what unites us.