totally train wreck-y
Friday, 19 August 2005 19:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earthbelow
Postsecret - a place where people send post cards of their secrets and they get posted to this site.
It totally fascinates me the secrets that people have. Dark secrets (I was raped, I was beaten) and funny secrets (I eat boogers, I like WalMart) and secrets that make no sense and secrets that could be someone you know.
Is there a comm like this on livejournal? Should there be?
I thought about starting one, but the thing is, I'd be afraid that people would start posting how they want to commit suicide or how they're being molested or know someone who is.
And I don't know if I could handle that - thing is, I'm not even sure I can handle reading these postcards prolongedly. Because while some are funny, and many are very artistically done - I don't know that I can look at things about people's deep, profound sorrow without going a little off the deep end. Because it's like having someone scream at you in the dark and you can't see where they're coming from.
Not to mention the moral dilemma. What if someone sends a post card that says "I murdered him" or "I'm going to commit suicide". Are you obligated to try to squeal on them, call up the police department or tell someone? Even worse, if you can't. If you know that someone, somewhere is hurt or hurting someone and there's nothing you can do about it.
I think that's the nature of secrets. They create a helplessness, because they take away power. They put people in a position to be superior to another person - at least in a given situation.
That's why we have this love and hate of secret. Why we protect certain secrets and demand the revelation of others. We refuse to allow a priest, a lawyer or a doctor to tell what they know - but at the same time we don't let people cover up crimes, we demand that people with knowledge of things tell authorities.
We tell children to come to adults, but we tell them not to be tattletales.
We don't want for people to have secrets from us (thus, power over us) but we want to protect our ability to get power over them.
Which is why sites like this are so interesting.
....
Also -
- last night in bed, my boyfriend told me this really hilarious story.
Apparently at some zoo somewhere, there were these penguins. And they figured out somehow that they could get out of their little cage place or whatever if they took a running jump.
So they'd do this (horrible horrible freedom!) and they'd be out, but have no idea what to do. But they couldn't get back in. So sometimes the zookeepers would find them milling around in front of their own exhibit.
But it gets better.
They didn't just do this at night. They'd do it in the day. And some poor schmoe that was walking past the penguin exhibit actually got *hit* by a penguin that was escaping.
Yes. I laughed like a hyena for like an hour.
....
Just a sleepy polar bear. I lurrbles it.
A peacock that honked at the boy because they only have a small short fence around the perimeter and the boy got close enough to take a picture just a foot away and then it went "hoooooonnnnnnnnnkkk" and I screamed 'cause it scared me.
- Meg
It totally fascinates me the secrets that people have. Dark secrets (I was raped, I was beaten) and funny secrets (I eat boogers, I like WalMart) and secrets that make no sense and secrets that could be someone you know.
Is there a comm like this on livejournal? Should there be?
I thought about starting one, but the thing is, I'd be afraid that people would start posting how they want to commit suicide or how they're being molested or know someone who is.
And I don't know if I could handle that - thing is, I'm not even sure I can handle reading these postcards prolongedly. Because while some are funny, and many are very artistically done - I don't know that I can look at things about people's deep, profound sorrow without going a little off the deep end. Because it's like having someone scream at you in the dark and you can't see where they're coming from.
Not to mention the moral dilemma. What if someone sends a post card that says "I murdered him" or "I'm going to commit suicide". Are you obligated to try to squeal on them, call up the police department or tell someone? Even worse, if you can't. If you know that someone, somewhere is hurt or hurting someone and there's nothing you can do about it.
I think that's the nature of secrets. They create a helplessness, because they take away power. They put people in a position to be superior to another person - at least in a given situation.
That's why we have this love and hate of secret. Why we protect certain secrets and demand the revelation of others. We refuse to allow a priest, a lawyer or a doctor to tell what they know - but at the same time we don't let people cover up crimes, we demand that people with knowledge of things tell authorities.
We tell children to come to adults, but we tell them not to be tattletales.
We don't want for people to have secrets from us (thus, power over us) but we want to protect our ability to get power over them.
Which is why sites like this are so interesting.
....
Also -
- last night in bed, my boyfriend told me this really hilarious story.
Apparently at some zoo somewhere, there were these penguins. And they figured out somehow that they could get out of their little cage place or whatever if they took a running jump.
So they'd do this (horrible horrible freedom!) and they'd be out, but have no idea what to do. But they couldn't get back in. So sometimes the zookeepers would find them milling around in front of their own exhibit.
But it gets better.
They didn't just do this at night. They'd do it in the day. And some poor schmoe that was walking past the penguin exhibit actually got *hit* by a penguin that was escaping.
Yes. I laughed like a hyena for like an hour.
....
Just a sleepy polar bear. I lurrbles it.
A peacock that honked at the boy because they only have a small short fence around the perimeter and the boy got close enough to take a picture just a foot away and then it went "hoooooonnnnnnnnnkkk" and I screamed 'cause it scared me.
- Meg
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no subject
Date: 20 Aug 2005 03:42 (UTC)hahaha - that sounds really funny about the peakcock - something similar happened to a boy at the D.C. aquarium - we were in the rainforrest section where all the animals roam free and the boy got close to take picture, the bird started walking towards him and never stopped til it hit his camera. it was hillarious. :) random that it happened there too
no subject
Date: 20 Aug 2005 07:56 (UTC)I hate it when a friend says "I have a secret to let you in on" as all of a sudden I feel guilty that I know something about someone that they dont know I know.
:0