my secrets

i want to tell them to ALL the wrong people.

Thought you should know w4w

Most of us learn early on that love is a feeling. When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect with them; that is, we invest feelings or emotion in them. That process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us is called "cathexis." In his book, Peck rightly emphasizes that most of us "confuse cathecting with loving." We all know how often individuals feeling connected to someone through the process of cathecting insist that they love the other person even if they are hurting or neglecting them. Since their feeling is that of cathexis, they insist what they feel is love.
When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abuse cannot coexist.

This was posted to Craigslist Missed Connections in the Women 4 Women section on May 5, 2010.

The Urge to Purge @ Nomorepotlucks.org

The fabulous folks at Nomorepotlucks.org have released an article about the Secret Swap! The `Urge to Purge` interview with Mél Hogan can be found at the link below. Be sure to check out the other amazing content on the theme of Anonyme in their 9th issue.

http://nomorepotlucks.org/article/anonyme-no9/urge-purge

can you keep a secret

Honestly? No.

our secrets

When I say that I have always been a person who collects the intimate details about the lives of others, I mean to say that I am surely nothing less than a crude gossip, and nothing more than an open ear. I hear everything. Nothing goes unnoticed. And in hearing those intimate details, I often times here things that are painful to speak about, that are of hurt and suffering, that are of pain and remorse. These things both haunt me and are an excercise in empathy, the human condition. I get to practice understanding what other people are going through without even trying really. I can`t help it. Its my whole life, this experience of empathy that never shuts off. It is in everything, television programmes, the stories of my family history, the tales of friendships past, in films and in music.

I am a sensitive person and my body moves to hear your secrets. With each divulgence, I spill more of my own. When we enter into a social contract together, we each give up a piece so that we might be better understood, better read, better people. It has only dawned on me recently that this isn`t a game. People tell me serious things. And I dole out serious things too. I am left with nothing for admiration for those who find the courage to tell me their secrets, because I think that for me, the exercise is different. I can`t keep anything in. I talk about everything. When Ì can`t talk, I find myself crying easily and taking myself far too seriously.

After keeping my own secrets and having a year filled with drama (Has it already been a year? Where has it gone? Where has she gone? Where have they gone?) I have landed on the other side. I keep nothing secret. I tell people my most embarassing faults and weaknesses within minutes, if only so that they might be able to protect themselves. Some exclaim at my openness. Others validate my big, fat, wide mouth by addressing how well I know I seem to know myself. This always means more to me than it should, because humility is something I have to work very, very hard at. But after a lot of talking, hours, sometimes 8 hours a day to anyone that will listen, I believe my methods are working. I am a recovering liar and manipulator. Its not a secret anymore. I have no reason to feel ashamed.

And for those that I have lost, friends and lovers for my year of disorderly conduct, and for the respect for me that they took with them when they left, I find myself thinking fondly of our time together, the laughter, the travel, the hugs, the supportive talks, and the list of other things I love and crave about the company of women. I can say, whilst holding my head high, that I have filled my life, my new life, with people who I am honest with, with people I get to practice being a better person with, with people who I am genuinely excited to know because they understand this journey. I have purged it all. Its all out on the dance floor. And every night we gather, we drink, and we dance away the sins of life past. And I am a better person for them. And I am happy, happier than I have ever been.

Please send me your secrets, so I can continue this project. And for those old friends that watch from afar, I wish you all the happiness in the world. If you like, you can dance with us.

Devastating by Hawksley

TELL ME YOUR SECRETS

For every secret you send me, I will send you one of mine.

Send secrets to secretswapmontreal@gmail.com

Please see "The Collection" pages on this blog for more information.

we feel fine

http://www.wefeelfine.org/wefeelfine_mac.html

anonymous sentiments and feelings.

Parables

I think she is talking about secrets....and I just think Rebekah Higgs from Halifax is swell!

The Hours Beforehand

(Photos by Mél Hogan)

Photos from the Vernissage

early in the night....

(Photos by Mél Hogan)

as tensions rise

Privacy; Our ability to maintain it, our ability to disrespect it, our desire to practice it. Our privacy is negotiated in our day to day lives as a way to both protect and conserve the intimate details about our lives to ourselves.

Now, I struggle to keep anything private. In fact, things that I used to feel shame about I now talk quite openly about. Things that I let rott me from the inside out, I now can speak candidly about, sharing my experience and transformation. A lot of this comes from a new ability to take ownership for my actions, and a desire to be known not for the pain that I have caused and the pain that I have felt, but rather for my ability to be a genuinely good person. For me, getting the dark secrets out so that I might be saved from my sins is pretty important for self discovery and reflexivity. When others in my life are private about their affairs, the closeted whistleblower in me is exposed. Why would they want to keep something like that private? Why wouldn't they want to share? What are they afraid of?

I can spend a lot of time speculating on why anyone would want to keep information private. A fear of judgement? Fear of having nothing left for oneself? For me, I have this illness, this inate desire to say everything I experience outloud, so that it can be realized to be true. I guess I sort of feel, if I don't talk about it, if I don't awknowledge that moment with the stranger in the streets, or how I really feel about someone or some situation, then it isn't real at all. My research has shown that "we talk ourselves into existence" (reference pending). Institutions are established through talk and communication alone. So what I wonder then, is what exactly is not established, what fails to exist, when we keep things private.

My immediate speculation would be human relationships. Human relationships are heavily built upon our ability to trust each other, to tell each other intimate things, to share the imperfect parts of ourselves so that we come to understand each other as imperfect beings. Durkheim writes about a "state of anomie" or a "state of normlessness." With the advent of the internet, wearable computers, electronic banking, and countless social networking sites, privacy has taken on an entirely new meaning. What we "put out" online about ourselves begins to inform the people around us, and more and more, the people not physically around us, about who we are and about the person, or the version of ourselves we want people to base their opinions from.

queer this

Is this what happened to us? I hear you are still the sweetest person. I also heard that you even speak respectfully of me. I hope I didn't do that much damanage.

postsecret

This is one of the reasons I collect secrets.

Itching for some secrets

How do I get other people to send secrets to each other and then upload them?

Interactions Vernissage

Secret Swap to be covered by NMP

Interesting development for the Secrets Project. I have been asked to do an interview for a future issue of Montreal's own Nomorepotlucks.org on the secrets project! Stay tuned!

http://nomorepotlucks.org/cover

Interactions Photos!

Getting in all working...

Kathy making music.

Artits lost in thought and conversation

Explaining Bluetooth and recieving secrets...

Kathy's project on three screens!

Brit and Heather

Thierry and Jordan

Brandon checking out Aisha's project

The Lone Wolf

Magic magic magic!

It finally happened! The vernissage went off without a hitch. Posters went out, websites went up, mass emails went around and of course, the Facebook event collected lists of invitees.

After weeks of travelling to Concordia University to use the phd labs to convert the secrets into 3pg files and upload them to the server, we were set. We set up the device at SNAP! The Loft and right away the programme started. Folks who enabled their mobile devices on Bluetooth were able to recieve secrets and other compressed video files. The main setback was that unfortunately, most mobile phones were unable to receive the secrets. I ended up recommending this blog to those who were still serious about getting the gossip or even just passing some time with some reading about our local queer community. There was lots of positive feedback and I send a big thanks to everyone who supported the project.

Check out the website!

http://www.wix.com/coms570/interaction

Secret Swap Part 2

Lesbian secret swap continues in January. I am marinating on an idea about leaving secrets in envelopes under park benches (I'm thinking Parc La Fontaine, actually. Queer hockey is coming up....) and having people send in secrets that way.

Please submit comments, thoughts and opinions.

A big thanks to everyone who encouraged me to run this social experiment from the margins: We`ll see you at Interaction, January 29, 2010.

Step 8: Ethics

So, I had a few conversations about ethics in the context of this project. I have been a student at Concordia all semester, I should have had participants sign consent forms. Unfortunately, that was just not possible. I'd much rather get in lots and lots and lots of trouble, get kicked out of the programme and lose all my credits than get any single of my participants to sign anything. The point is anonymity. The point is trust. The point is getting queer girls to email secret swap on a whim. When they make a conscious decision to email in a secret, I believe their participation is essentially their consent.