Others, however, touch on much more serious issues, such as suicide or identity crisis: "Sometimes I imagine that one of the guys driving by is you and you've come to save me from killing myself in this town."
These were a few of the secrets that Frank Warren shared last Thursday in Spaulding Auditorium as part of an event based on his four-year-old community art blog "PostSecret."Warren also shared his own personal journey founding and managing PostSecret, and invited audience members to share some of their own secrets.
A few minutes into the talk, Warren explained why so many secrets he receives involve serious issues: 90 audience members seated in the nearly packed auditorium would contemplate suicide in the next year, he said, adding that 16 people were seated next to individuals who would actually attempt to kill themselves.
Warren explored the relation between the secrets we keep and our mental well-being, explaining that repressing a secret can be harmful to people's health.
Warren said that he views PostSecret as a productive way to deal with secrets instead of hiding them.
"The very act of telling a secret can be transformative," he said. "It can change who you are by allowing you to move on."
With that in mind, Frank invited members of the audience to walk to one of the two microphones set up in the aisles of the auditorium and share their own secrets. Audience members were hesitant to approach the microphones for the first couple of minutes.
Warren said that happens during most of his PostSecret events, and he had prepared plenty of anecdotes of his journey with PostSecret to fill the silence. Soon, however, people began to step up.
The secrets they shared were just as varied as the secrets that show up on the web site. One girl confessed that she always eats Lucky Charms marshmallows in the order prescribed by the cereal's well-known jingle. Another girl told Frank, "Watching secrets on your blog put my life back together."
Dan Leopold '10 was among the members of the audience to share a secret. He explained that though he had not planned initially to speak, he was moved by Warren's discussion of catharsis.
"It's exactly what [Warren] said," Leopold said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "It is a release and it brings up a lot of emotions. With secrets you push your thoughts and emotions deeper, but when you let that stoppage go everything just comes up."
Warren also emphasized the connections that can be created by sharing secrets. Not only does telling a secret result in an individual catharsis, it also helps the individuals discover that they are not alone. He pointed to his blog, which often displays e-mail responses to the selection of secrets he posts each week.
Warren sprinkled his talk with frequent plugs for the four PostSecret books currently on the market and a new book set for release later this year, "PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God."
Warren said that he would donate five dollars from each book sold on campus to offset the costs of the event.
