LEP Secrets

"A secret is something you tell another person," Bono once advised, and while that would seem to defeat the purpose of secrecy, if you think about it, he had a point. A secret untold is just mental dead weight, a fact or event or suspicion that the mind chews on endlessly, sometimes to the point of madness. As humans, we are constantly evaluating ourselves- in fact, self awareness is one of the things that makes us human, one might say. When we communicate and interact, we are, in effect, asking for validation, subconsciously demanding that the world confirm the things that we think we know. A secret that a person has not shared gets no feedback, no confirmation from the rest of humankind, and that can be frightening.

Some time ago, a call for LEP secrets was put out, and the results poured in. All secrets were scrubbed of identifying information, and then scanned into a computer, and they are reproduced here. They are the collective unconscious of us all- heartbreaking and personal and very real. There is obviously no feedback for these secrets, unless the provider chooses to step forward on his or her own. They are here, in part as an exercise in unburdening, and in part to remind us all that there is not a single one of us that does not have a hidden side, and thus we should view each other, and everyone else as well, with even more compassion than we already do.

~ Michael AKA Slayer of Popcorn