Postsecret -- Writer's Poke #103

For Writers:

In 2004, Frank Warren acted on a simple idea. Give folks postpaid postcards with his address on them, and invite them to send him their secrets. And believe or not, people did.

Each week, Warren posts a new batch of secrets to his blog -- http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/, and over the past few years, he's collected around 100,000 secrets. Some of these have also been published in book form.

Critics of Warren's blog and books say that he is somehow "exploiting" the people that send him their secrets -- as if secrets were meant to remain, well, secret. And although his blog continues to be advertisement-free, they claim that he has no business profiting off of others with the sale of the Postsecret books.

On the other hand, people visit his blog by the tens of thousands, and he has won quite a few awards and public acclaim for what started out as a pretty simple idea.

Would you send Frank Warren, or any stranger, one of your secrets? If so, which one would you select and why? If not, why not? Would you be more inclined to tell a secret to a stranger or a close friend? Why?

"Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets." -- Paul Tournier

Comments

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #1 - Real Coffee with Scott Adams

I've been curious about how others perceive reality. What is "true" and "real" to me is not necessarily "true" and "real" to others. First stop: Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. He's currently 67, does a daily podcast called "Real Coffee with Scott Adams" which draws about 30,000 listeners on YouTube, with 172,000 total subscribers to the channel. Podcast is also available on all the usual places, with a 4.4 rating on Apple Podcasts. Each episode is about an hour long, or a little less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15SFbr2vj8c 1. Basic format: Just runs through news articles that drew his interest. On the April 15 episode (link above), he ran through 28 articles. Often he'd laugh at something, sometimes to show his disbelief. 2. Adams is not a big fan of science. He's open to conspiracy theories. Believes that the government doesn't tell us the truth (although he seems to think the Trump administration is an e...

Jesus and the Inconvenience of His Word to American Christians

I'm not a preacher, but if you follow the teachings of Jesus, it was he who said: Do to others as you would have them do to you. That's from Luke 6:31 , and reading all of Luke 6 isn't a bad way to spend five minutes of your time. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206&version=NIV I guess a lot of Christians understand the Golden Rule and practice it in their daily lives. Others, however, especially political Christians (and specifically those promoting Christian Nationalism) seem to ignore the Golden Rule. They don't care about humanitarian issues. They claim they either don't exist, aren't the problem of the United States, or are the fault of the victims. They counter with distractions like, "Why do you care so much about THEM when you should be caring about the REAL people who matter?" Sorry, but I don't recall Jesus ever dividing people into those who matter more and those who matter less. Of course, Jesus also said not to j...

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #2 -- Bald and Bankrupt

His first name is Benjamin, but he usually goes by "Bald." Bald has been posting travel videos since 2018. His passion is anything Soviet Union, but he will take the time to learn a language before he visits a place -- not only Russian, but Spanish, say. It's important for him to have the ability to speak to people in their native tongue. On Friday, April 18, Bald posted a video called "Solo on Ukraine's Eastern Front." So far it's generated 2.7 million views, and based on viewer average, it will likely go over 5 million views. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3HRnwC6pso Most of his videos are in the neighborhood of an hour in length. In them, he usually establishes where he is and what his goal for being there is. He will start somewhere and then go seek out a place, without knowing exactly what he will find there. For the latest Ukraine video, he starts at the Kiev train station. It's been 3 years, he says, since he last visited Ukraine, and he h...

The Writer's Poke

Search This Blog