ESU students reveal 'Dirty Little Secrets'

Everybody has a secret, but not everybody knows how to keep it. Thanks to Emporia State’s “Dirty Little Secrets,” students have the opportunity to tell their secrets anonymously this week by stopping by the Dirty Little Secrets table in the Memorial Union and filling out a postcard.

“It’s a fulfilling thing to do,” said Ian Knoedel, junior theatre major. “Secrets are meant to be told, it’s like a release and it’s an opportunity for you to be honest with yourself but still no one else has to know it was you.”

Students don’t have to fill out their postcards at the table but can take one with them instead and fill it out later. Boxes to put the postcards in have been placed throughout campus in dormitories and other facilities. The event is being hosted by UAC, primarily the Visual Arts committee.

Once UAC has collected all of the postcards, they are going to make a big bulletin board on which most of the cards will be posted. Afterward, UAC plans to send the post cards to Frank Warren, author of “A Lifetime of Secrets.”

“It’s a relaxing technique and you can basically tell the whole world and no one will know,” said Ashley Howell, senior information systems major and vice-chairman of the visual arts committee for UAC. “It makes you feel better about yourself and it’s actually a type of art therapy.”

The idea for this event was based off of Warren’s “A Lifetime of Secrets.” While creating the book, Warren asked individuals from all cultures, races and genders to creatively decorate postcards and to include a secret that they wanted to tell. He then collected and compiled the postcards into a book.

In a recent interview with MSNBC, Warren admitted that he was originally inspired to do the project because he was struggling with issues and secrets from his youth and it was a way of sharing secrets that helped him to reconcile and deal with them.

Warren chose to conduct the secret sharing through postcards because it created a safe way for individuals to share their hopes, dreams or fears and is a non-judgmental process through which they would not be punished for sharing the truth.

“It’s pretty awesome,” said Lindsey Gentry, sophomore business management major. “I would participate and it will be really funny and interesting to see all of the postcards and what people have put on their cards and how they decorate them.”

There is also a Web site, www.postsecrets.com, where Warren posts the secrets that he receives. Warren said that he receives around 1,000 a week and only picks 20 for the site. He tries to pick postcards that are surprising, funny, philosophical, sexual and confused, all of which show different characteristics of humanity. He then tries to arrange them in an order that tells a story about who we are as individuals.

All of the secrets that individuals mail are sent directly to Warren’s home address, where he reads the postcards and keeps them hidden in a secret spot where no one else can read them. Warren said that he doesn’t really know why people trust him with their secrets, but he will never share those secrets because he values the relationship he has created with each individual who sends him a postcard.