Dark Matter | Hazlitt
For twenty years, PostSecret has broadcast suburban America’s hidden truths—and revealed the limits of limitless disclosure.
二十年来，《PostSecret》一直在传播美国郊区隐藏的真相，并揭示了无限披露的局限性。
Meg Bernhard is a journalist and essayist based in Las Vegas.
梅格·伯恩哈德 (Meg Bernhard) 是一位驻拉斯维加斯的记者和散文家。
Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The...
她的作品曾出现在《纽约时报杂志》、《纽约客》、《哈泼斯》、《...
In the early aughts , Frank Warren ran a medical document delivery business in Germantown, Maryland.
早期，弗兰克·沃伦在马里兰州日耳曼敦经营一家医疗文件递送业务。
It was a monotonous job, involving daily trips to government offices to copy thousands of pages of journal articles for pharmaceutical companies, law firms, and non-profits.
这是一项单调的工作，需要每天前往政府办公室为制药公司、律师事务所和非营利组织复制数千页的期刊文章。
By his early forties, he had a house in a nice subdivision, a wife, a young daughter, and a dog.
四十出头的时候，他在一个漂亮的小区里有了一套房子，还有妻子、年幼的女儿和一只狗。
His family fostered children for a few weeks or months, and he felt a sense of purpose in helping kids who were suffering acute crises in their own homes.
他的家人寄养了几个星期或几个月的孩子，他有一种帮助自己家里遭受严重危机的孩子的使命感。
From the outside, things appeared to be going better than well.
从外部来看，事情似乎进展顺利。
But inside, something was missing: A sense of adventure, or at least a little fun.
但内心却缺少了一些东西：一种冒险的感觉，或者至少是一点乐趣。
An outlet to explore the weirder, darker, and more imaginative parts of his interior world.
一个探索他内心世界中更奇怪、更黑暗、更富有想象力的部分的出口。
He’d never been one for small talk, preferring instead to launch into deep discussions, even with people he barely knew.
他从来都不是一个喜欢闲聊的人，他更喜欢展开深入的讨论，即使是和他几乎不认识的人。
He wondered if he could create a place like that outside of everyday conversation, a place full of awe, anguish, and urgency.
他想知道是否可以在日常谈话之外创造一个这样的地方，一个充满敬畏、痛苦和紧迫感的地方。
In the fall of 2004, Frank came up with an idea for a project.
2004 年秋天，弗兰克提出了一个项目的想法。
After he finished delivering documents for the day, he’d drive through the darkened streets of Washington, D.C., with stacks of self-addressed postcards—three thousand in total.
送完当天的文件后，他会开车穿过华盛顿特区黑暗的街道，带着成堆的写着自己地址的明信片——总共三千张。
At metro stops, he’d approach strangers.
在地铁站，他会接近陌生人。
“Hi,” he’d say.
“嗨，”他会说。
“I’m Frank.
“我是弗兰克。
And I collect secrets.” Some people shrugged him off, or told him they didn’t have any secrets.
我收集秘密。”有些人对他不屑一顾，或者告诉他他们没有任何秘密。
Surely, Frank thought, those people had the best ones.
弗兰克想，这些人当然拥有最好的。
Others were amused, or intrigued.
其他人要么觉得好笑，要么感到好奇。
They took cards and, following instructions he’d left next to the address, decorated them, wrote down secrets they’d never told anyone before, and mailed them back to Frank.
他们拿了卡片，按照他在地址旁边留下的指示，装饰它们，写下他们以前从未告诉过任何人的秘密，然后将它们寄回给弗兰克。
All the secrets were anonymous.
所有的秘密都是匿名的。
Initially, Frank received about one hundred postcards back.
最初，弗兰克收到了大约一百张明信片。
They told stories of infidelity, longing, abuse.
他们讲述了不忠、渴望、虐待的故事。
Some were erotic.
有些是色情的。
Some were funny.
有些很有趣。
He displayed them at a local art exhibition and included an anonymous secret of his own.
他在当地的一个艺术展上展示了这些作品，其中还包括了他自己的一个匿名秘密。
After the exhibition ended, though, the postcards kept coming.
展览结束后，明信片源源不断地寄来。
By 2024, Frank would have more than a million.
到 2024 年，弗兰克的资产将超过 100 万。
After his exhibit closed, the postcards took over Frank’s life.
展览结束后，明信片占据了弗兰克的生活。
Hundreds poured into his mailbox, week after week.
一周又一周，数百封邮件涌入他的邮箱。
He decided to create a website, PostSecret, where every Sunday he uploaded images of postcards he’d received in the mail.
他决定创建一个名为 PostSecret 的网站，每周日他都会上传他在邮件中收到的明信片的图像。
The website is a simple, ad-free blog with a black background, the 4x6 rectangular confessions emerging from the darkness like faces illuminated around a campfire.
该网站是一个简单、无广告的博客，背景为黑色，4x6 的矩形自白从黑暗中浮现出来，就像篝火周围照亮的面孔。
Frank is careful to keep himself out of the project—he thinks of the anonymous postcard writers as the project’s authors—so there’s no commentary.
弗兰克小心翼翼地不让自己参与该项目——他认为匿名明信片作者就是该项目的作者——所以没有评论。
Yet curation is what makes PostSecret art.
然而，策展才是 PostSecret 艺术的源泉。
There’s a dream logic to the postcards’ sequence, like walking through a surrealist painting, from light to dark to absurd to profound.
明信片的序列有一种梦幻的逻辑，就像走过一幅超现实主义画作，从光明到黑暗，从荒诞到深刻。
I’m afraid that one day, we’ll find out TOMS are made by a bunch of slave kids!
恐怕有一天，我们会发现 TOMS 是由一群奴隶孩子制作的！
I am a man.
我是一个男人。
After an injury my hormones got screwed up and my breasts started to grow.
受伤后，我的荷尔蒙紊乱，我的胸部开始长大。
I can’t tell anyone this but: I really like having tits.
我不能告诉任何人这一点，但是：我真的很喜欢有乳房。
I’m in love with a murderer…
我爱上了一个杀人犯……
but I’ve never felt safer in anyone else’s arms.
但我从未在别人的怀抱中感到更安全。
I cannot relax in my bathtub because I have an irrational fear that it’s going to fall through the floor.
我无法在浴缸里放松，因为我有一种非理性的恐惧，担心它会从地板上掉下来。
Even if you don’t see him on the website, Frank is always present: selecting postcards, placing them in conversation with one another.
即使您在网站上看不到他，弗兰克也总是在场：选择明信片，将它们放在一起进行对话。
Off-screen, he’s a lanky, youthful 60-year-old emanating the healthy glow of those who live near the beach.
在银幕之外，他是一位瘦长、年轻的 60 岁老人，浑身散发着海滩附近居民的健康光芒。
Last August, we met at his house in Laguna Niguel, in a trim suburban neighbourhood a few miles from the ocean; when I asked about his week, he told me his Oura Ring said he’d slept well the night before.
去年八月，我们在他位于尼古湖的家里见面，那是一个整洁的郊区，距离大海几英里。当我询问他这一周的情况时，他告诉我他的大环戒指说他前一天晚上睡得很好。
He offered me a seat on his back patio, and the din of children playing sports rang out from a park below.
他在他的后院给了我一个座位，下面的公园里传来了孩子们做运动的喧闹声。
His right arm was in a sling.
他的右臂吊着吊带。
He’d fractured his scapula after a wave slammed him to the sand while he was bodysurfing.
当他进行人体冲浪时，海浪将他撞到沙滩上，导致他的肩胛骨骨折。
As we spoke, I gathered that his outlook on most everything is positive—disarmingly so.
当我们谈话时，我了解到他对大多数事情的看法都是积极的——令人放心。
The first time he had a scapula fracture, after a bike accident a few years ago, “I had this sense of release, I would say, from my everyday concerns and burdens,” he said.
几年前的一次自行车事故后，他第一次肩胛骨骨折，“我想说，我有一种从日常担忧和负担中解脱出来的感觉，”他说。
Physically exhausting himself through endurance exercise is his relief from the postcards, which skew emotionally dark.
通过耐力训练让自己精疲力竭，这是他从明信片中解脱出来的方式，明信片在情感上变得阴暗。
“I’ve had to become the kind of person that can do this every day,” he told me.
“我必须成为那种每天都能做到这一点的人，”他告诉我。
For years, Frank has been interested in postcards as a medium of narrative.
多年来，弗兰克一直对明信片作为叙事媒介感兴趣。
Before PostSecret, he had a project he called “The Reluctant Oracle,” in which he placed postcards with messages like Your question is a misunderstood answer into empty bottles and deposited them in a lake near his house.
在 PostSecret 之前，他有一个名为“不情愿的神谕”的项目，在该项目中，他将写有诸如“你的问题是一个被误解的答案”之类的信息的明信片放入空瓶子中，然后将它们存放在他家附近的湖中。
(A Washington Post article from the time said “The form is cliche: a message in a bottle,” but called the messages themselves “creepy and alluring.”)
（《华盛顿邮报》当时的一篇文章称“这种形式是陈词滥调：瓶子里的信息”，但称这些信息本身“令人毛骨悚然且诱人”。）
What he considers his earliest postcard project, though, dates from his childhood.
不过，他认为自己最早的明信片项目可以追溯到他的童年时期。
When he was in fifth grade, just as he was about to board the bus to camp in the mountains near Los Angeles, his mother handed him three postcards.
当他五年级时，正当他准备登上公共汽车去洛杉矶附近的山区露营时，他的母亲递给他三张明信片。
She told him to write down any interesting experiences he had and mail the cards back home.
她让他写下任何有趣的经历，然后将卡片寄回家。
Frank took the cards.
弗兰克接过卡片。
“It’s a Christian sleep-away camp, so of course a lot of crazy stuff happened, and of course I didn’t write my mom about any of it,” he said.
“这是一个基督教过夜营，所以当然发生了很多疯狂的事情，当然我没有写信给我妈妈任何事情，”他说。
But just before camp ended, he remembered the postcards, jotted something down, and mailed them.
但就在夏令营结束前，他想起了明信片，记下了一些东西，然后寄了出去。
When he saw them in the mailbox a few days later, he wondered, Am I the same person that wrote this message days ago?
几天后，当他在邮箱里看到这些邮件时，他想知道，我是几天前写这封邮件的同一个人吗？
The self, he had observed as a grade schooler, was always in a state of flux.
他在小学时就观察到，自我总是处于不断变化的状态。
Examining secrets was part of a lifelong inquiry into what it means to speak.
检查秘密是毕生探究说话意义的一部分。
Frank’s parents split up when he was twelve—a shocking and destabilizing event that would define his adolescence.
弗兰克的父母在他十二岁时分手了——这一令人震惊且不稳定的事件决定了他的青春期。
Soon after, he moved with his mother and brother from Southern California to Springfield, Illinois.
不久之后，他与母亲和兄弟从南加州搬到伊利诺伊州斯普林菲尔德。
Messed up by his parents’ divorce and his cross-country move, Frank became anxious and depressed.
由于父母离婚和跨国搬家，弗兰克变得焦虑和沮丧。
While he was in high school, Frank went to a Pentecostal church three or four times a week, searching for a sense of connection with others.
高中时，弗兰克每周去五旬节教会三四次，寻找与他人的联系感。
At the end of every service, churchgoers would pray at the altar to receive the Holy Spirit.
每次礼拜结束时，信徒都会在祭坛前祈祷接受圣灵。
Then, they spoke in tongues.
然后，他们就说方言。
All around him, the Spirit took hold, and people flailed their arms, wept, and danced.
在他周围，圣灵占据了一切，人们挥舞着手臂，哭泣着，跳舞着。
Frank looked on with envy and shame.
弗兰克一脸羡慕和羞愧地看着。
No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many people tried to help him, he never spoke in tongues.
无论他如何努力，无论有多少人试图帮助他，他从来没有说过方言。
It was a spiritual failure, this failure of language.
这是精神上的失败，语言上的失败。
After college, while living in Virginia, he met a guy named Dave on the basketball court.
大学毕业后，当他住在弗吉尼亚州时，他在篮球场上遇到了一个名叫戴夫的人。
They became close fast.
他们很快就变得亲密起来。
Dave was funny and sensitive, and also athletic: he and Frank played hundreds of pickup games together.
戴夫很有趣、敏感，而且也很有运动能力：他和弗兰克一起打了数百场临时比赛。
But Dave seemed to be struggling.
但戴夫似乎很挣扎。
He was living with his parents, couldn’t land a job.
他和父母住在一起，找不到工作。
He spent a lot of time on computers, and confided in Frank that he was being bullied online.
他花了很多时间在电脑上，并向弗兰克吐露自己在网上受到了欺凌。
“You’ve got to get out of here,” Frank told him.
“你必须离开这里，”弗兰克告诉他。
That was one of the last things he ever said to Dave.
这是他对戴夫说的最后一句话之一。
Frank moved to Maryland, and not long after, he got a call from Dave’s father.
弗兰克搬到了马里兰州，不久之后，他接到了戴夫父亲的电话。
Dave had killed himself.
戴夫自杀了。
Frank was crushed.
弗兰克被压垮了。
He felt like he should have seen more warning signs, and at the same time, felt helpless.
他觉得自己应该看到更多的警示信号，同时又感到无助。
He ruminated on how Dave might have interpreted their final conversation.
他思考戴夫可能如何解释他们最后的谈话。
Out of his parents’ house , he’d meant.
他的意思是，离开他父母的房子。
Not out of this life.
不脱离此生。
In the wake of his loss, Frank wanted “to do something useful with his grief,” so he decided to volunteer on a suicide prevention hotline.
失去亲人后，弗兰克想要“做一些有用的事情来缓解悲伤”，因此他决定在自杀预防热线担任志愿者。
In training, his supervisors modelled how to inflect his voice to sound non-judgmental, how to ask open-ended questions and get below the surface of everyday conversation—lessons he would carry into his later life.
在培训中，他的主管模仿了如何让他的声音听起来不带有评判性，如何提出开放式问题以及如何深入日常对话的表面——这些教训他将带入他的晚年生活。
He felt catharsis in listening to other people’s pain, and, in turn, sensed that they appreciated his presence.
他在倾听别人的痛苦时感受到了宣泄，反过来，他也感觉到他们欣赏他的存在。
Simply by talking about their struggles, he found, they sometimes gained new understanding.
他发现，仅仅通过谈论他们的挣扎，他们有时就会获得新的理解。
Once every week or two, Frank listened for six hours, up until late in the quiet of his house, as people unravelled.
弗兰克每隔一两周就会听一次六个小时，直到深夜，在家里安静的地方，听人们解开谜团。
He let them talk, and he let them stay silent.
他让他们说话，又让他们保持沉默。
Listening to people’s confessions in the wee hours of the morning, Frank realized that people needed a way to talk about the messy topics often off limits in everyday conversation.
凌晨时分，听着人们的自白，弗兰克意识到人们需要一种方式来谈论日常谈话中经常被禁止的混乱话题。
PostSecret contains echoes of his time volunteering on the suicide prevention hotline.
《PostSecret》包含了他在自杀预防热线做志愿者的时光的回响。
Like the hotline, the project draws attention to the ways people conceal parts of themselves, and encourages disclosure.
与热线一样，该项目引起人们对人们隐藏自己部分的方式的关注，并鼓励披露。
But the postcards go even further: They’re public, available for anyone to see.
但明信片更进一步：它们是公开的，任何人都可以看到。
They show us the types of stories people normally keep guarded, creating, in the aggregate, a living inventory of our taboos.
它们向我们展示了人们通常保守的故事类型，总的来说，创造了我们禁忌的活生生的清单。
What is a secret?
什么是秘密？
Knowledge kept hidden from others, etymologically linked to the words seduction and excrement .
知识对他人隐藏起来，在词源上与“诱惑”和“排泄物”这两个词有关。
To entice someone to look closer; to force them to look away.
引诱某人靠近看；迫使他们把目光移开。
Secrecy, writes psychologist Michael Slepian in his 2022 book, The Secret Lives of Secrets , is not an act, but an intention — “I intend,” he writes, “for people not to learn this thing.” “To intend to keep a secret,” he continues, “you need to have a mind capable of reasoning with other minds.” Thus, psychologists believe we start to develop a concept of secrets at around the age of three years old, when we also begin to understand that other people have minds—beliefs, desires, emotions—different from our own.
心理学家迈克尔·斯莱皮安 (Michael Slepian) 在其 2022 年出版的著作《秘密的秘密生活》(The Secret Lives of Secrets) 中写道，保密不是一种行为，而是一种意图——“我打算，”他写道，“让人们不要知道这件事。” “想要保守秘密，”他继续说道，“你需要有一颗能够与他人推理的头脑。”因此，心理学家认为，我们在三岁左右就开始形成秘密的概念，那时我们也开始理解其他人有与我们不同的思想——信仰、欲望、情感。
At that point, researchers believe, we also develop the ability to experience self-conscious emotions like guilt, shame, and embarrassment.
研究人员认为，到那时，我们也会发展出体验内疚、羞耻和尴尬等自我意识情绪的能力。
As our theory of the mind develops, we begin to worry that other people are unable or unwilling to understand us, which, in turn, motivates secrecy.
随着我们的心灵理论的发展，我们开始担心其他人无法或不愿意理解我们，这反过来又激发了保密性。
Our teenage years are especially ripe for secret-keeping.
我们的青少年时期尤其适合保守秘密。
As we develop stronger senses of self, we distance ourselves from our parents in a bid to assert control over our lives.
当我们发展出更强烈的自我意识时，我们就会与父母保持距离，以求掌控自己的生活。
Keeping secrets from our parents “allows an escape from [their] criticism, punishment, and anger,” Slepian writes, “but it also precludes the possibility of receiving help when it’s most needed.”
斯莱皮安写道，向父母保守秘密“可以逃避他们的批评、惩罚和愤怒，但也排除了在最需要帮助时获得帮助的可能性。”
Cultural taboos create secrecy.
文化禁忌创造秘密。
Systems and structures uphold it.
系统和结构支持它。
The nature, and content, of secret-keeping varies across cultures, but we have always hidden things from one another.
保守秘密的性质和内容因文化而异，但我们总是互相隐瞒一些事情。
The Greek gods had secret affairs; for centuries, women in central China wrote to each other in a secret language to evade the ire of oppressive husbands.
希腊诸神有秘密的事务；几个世纪以来，中国中部的妇女用一种秘密语言互相写信，以逃避压迫丈夫的愤怒。
Today, people keep secrets for safety: They conceal medical conditions to receive better insurance coverage, and hide their legal status so they don’t get deported.
如今，人们为了安全而保守秘密：他们隐瞒健康状况以获得更好的保险范围，并隐瞒自己的法律身份以免被驱逐出境。
Even scripture has something to say about secrets, which is, mostly: don’t keep them.
甚至圣经也有关于秘密的说法，主要是：不要保守秘密。
Proverbs 28:13 reads, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses them and renounces them finds mercy.” God, in other words, wants full disclosure.
箴言 28:13 写道：“遮掩自己罪过的，不亨通；承认并离弃罪过的，必蒙怜悯。”换句话说，上帝想要完全的披露。
We keep secrets because we are ashamed or afraid; we tell them because we want an escape.
我们保守秘密是因为我们感到羞耻或害怕；我们告诉他们是因为我们想逃脱。
We want to feel accepted, seen.
我们希望感到被接受、被看见。
Naturally, we share some secrets with our friends and partners, but sometimes those relationships are the source of a secret, so instead we seek out neutral interlocutors.
当然，我们会与朋友和合作伙伴分享一些秘密，但有时这些关系是秘密的来源，因此我们会寻找中立的对话者。
A bartender in Las Vegas told me the same client came, week after week, to talk specifically with him about her anxiety and troubled dating life.
拉斯维加斯的一位调酒师告诉我，同一个客户一周又一周地来，专门与他谈论她的焦虑和陷入困境的约会生活。
A hairdresser in Salt Lake City told me that Mormons grappling with their faltering faith came to her, an ex-Mormon, to work through family conflict.
盐湖城的一位理发师告诉我，那些正与信仰动摇的摩门教徒来找她，一位前摩门教徒，来解决家庭冲突。
A therapist I met in Arkansas observed that many of her clients were leaving Christianity and using therapy as their new religion, which she found “a little spooky.”
我在阿肯色州遇到的一位治疗师观察到，她的许多客户正在离开基督教，并将治疗作为他们的新宗教，她觉得这“有点令人毛骨悚然”。
When I asked what she meant, she told me that people, ex-Christian or otherwise, often look to therapy to find a source of meaning and release in their life—to fill a spiritual and emotional vacuum.
当我问她的意思时，她告诉我，人们，无论是前基督徒还是其他人，经常寻求治疗来寻找生活中意义和释放的源泉——以填补精神和情感上的真空。
Evangelicalism, she said, values “inappropriate vulnerability,” where people share testimonies and break boundaries in public venues.
她说，福音派重视“不适当的脆弱性”，人们在公共场所分享见证并打破界限。
She’s wary when she hears those same stories within the context of therapy—when clients come in and feel obligated to spill everything up front, then ask for cures to their emotional ailments.
当她在治疗中听到同样的故事时，她会保持警惕——当客户进来时，觉得有义务把所有事情都说出来，然后要求治疗他们的情感疾病。
Later, thinking about secrets, I remembered this conversation and the phrase “inappropriate vulnerability.” How much vulnerability with strangers is appropriate?
后来，想到秘密，我想起了这段对话和“不适当的脆弱性”这句话。对陌生人的脆弱程度多少合适？
How much is too much?
多少算太多？
For a while, PostSecret was my secret.
有一段时间，PostSecret 是我的秘密。
The website existed in the internet nest I made for myself during adolescence, along with sites like fmylife.com, where users each posted a few lines about the tediums and mishaps of their days, often involving anxiety, depression, alcohol, and sex.
这个网站存在于我青春期时为自己创建的互联网巢穴中，还有像 fmylife.com 这样的网站，其中用户每个人都发布了几行内容，讲述他们生活中的乏味和不幸，通常涉及焦虑、抑郁、酒精和性。
They were websites that revealed glimpses of how other people lived, where I could gather anecdotes about adult life and begin to construct an idea of how my own world might look one day.
这些网站揭示了其他人的生活方式，在那里我可以收集有关成人生活的轶事，并开始构建我自己的世界有一天会是什么样子的想法。
I grew up in Temecula, a California suburb not too far from where Frank currently lives.
我在加州郊区特曼库拉长大，离弗兰克现在住的地方不远。
My friends and I wandered around the mall to try on skinny jeans, and sprinted around after dark to toilet-paper our classmates’ yards.
我和我的朋友们在商场里闲逛，试穿紧身牛仔裤，天黑后又跑到同学的院子里去取卫生纸。
Suburban life often felt stifling, so I had a habit of inventing stories to make my world seem more interesting.
郊区的生活常常令人感到窒息，所以我养成了编故事的习惯，让我的世界看起来更有趣。
I recounted to friends, with narrative flourish, an encounter I’d had with a freshwater shark in an alpine lake.
我用华丽的叙述方式向朋友们讲述了我在高山湖泊中与淡水鲨鱼的遭遇。
I created a mysterious, dark-haired boyfriend who I’d met at a soccer tournament.
我创造了一个神秘的黑发男友，我是在一场足球锦标赛上认识的。
I’d never actually had a boyfriend.
我实际上从未有过男朋友。
Temecula had a distinctly conservative atmosphere, and it was impossible to escape the shame that accompanied any stray thought about boys, or my changing body.
特曼库拉的气氛明显保守，任何关于男孩或我不断变化的身体的想法都不可避免地带来羞耻感。
Ours was a town where, in 2008, neighbours supported a California ban on gay marriage.
2008 年，我们所在的小镇的邻居们支持加州禁止同性婚姻的法案。
Residents protested the city’s first mosque with signs reading “no to sharia law” in 2010.
2010年，居民举着“拒绝伊斯兰教法”的标语抗议该市第一座清真寺。
Arsonists set fire to a local abortion clinic in 2017, and, just in the past two years, the school board would ban critical race theory and reject an elementary school curriculum that referenced Harvey Milk.
2017 年，纵火犯纵火焚烧了当地一家堕胎诊所，就在过去两年，学校董事会禁止批评种族理论，并拒绝引用哈维·米尔克的小学课程。
My family went to a Methodist church, but I sometimes went to Mormon dances with friends; at one such dance in middle school, my dress was too short, so a chaperone made me staple cloth to the hem to cover my knees.
我的家人去了卫理公会教堂，但我有时和朋友一起去参加摩门教舞会；在中学的一次这样的舞会上，我的裙子太短了，所以一位监护人让我用布钉在下摆上以遮住膝盖。
During slow dances, we held on to boys’ shoulders from an arm’s length away.
慢舞时，我们在一臂之外抓住男孩的肩膀。
Most everyone I knew in Temecula went to church on Sundays.
我在特曼库拉认识的大多数人周日都去教堂。
But I found church boring.
但我发现教堂很无聊。
I’d excuse myself to go to the bathroom and linger there during sermons, counting the flowers on the wallpaper.
在布道期间，我会借口去洗手间并在那里逗留，数着壁纸上的花朵。
I didn’t understand how God, who I didn’t see or hear, could exist.
我不明白我没有看到或听到的上帝怎么可能存在。
But even if I didn’t believe God was real, my family did, and religious ideas subtly permeated our home life, shaping what we did and did not talk about.
但即使我不相信上帝是真实的，我的家人却相信上帝是真实存在的，宗教观念巧妙地渗透到我们的家庭生活中，塑造了我们所做的和不谈论的事情。
We talked about doing well in school and sports; we didn’t talk about our feelings, or puberty, or dating.
我们谈论了在学校和体育方面表现出色；我们没有谈论我们的感受、青春期或约会。
My body was a secret, softening and bleeding, fascinating and repulsive.
我的身体是一个秘密，软化、流血、迷人又令人厌恶。
I didn’t really speak to anyone about these changes, though I do remember one car ride to school with a friend.
我并没有真正与任何人谈论这些变化，尽管我确实记得和朋友一起乘车去学校。
Her mom was driving, and my friend slipped me pieces of paper in the backseat.
她妈妈开车，我的朋友在后座塞给我几张纸。
In her scrunched-up handwriting, she asked: Do you wear bras?
她用皱巴巴的笔迹问道：你穿胸罩吗？
Do you have hair down there?
你下面有头发吗？
When I was a freshman, my period bled through my capris, and upperclassmen stared as I waddled across campus to the cross-country teacher’s classroom for gym shorts, sweat slicking down my back.
当我还是一名新生的时候，我的月经从我的七分裤里流出来，当我摇摇晃晃地穿过校园到越野老师的教室去穿运动短裤时，高年级的同学们都盯着我，汗水从我的背上滑落。
I’d only ever used thin pads, and I was too anxious to ask about buying tampons.
我只用过很薄的卫生巾，而且我太着急去询问购买卫生棉条的事了。
I didn’t want to talk about it, and no one ever asked.
我不想谈论这件事，也没有人问过。
I can barely remember sex ed programming in school; for years, I thought just sleeping next to a boy could get me pregnant.
我几乎不记得学校里的性教育节目；多年来，我一直认为只要睡在一个男孩旁边就能让我怀孕。
When, in high school, I started the drug Accutane to tame my unruly face, my dermatologist listed off options for pregnancy prevention to avoid harm to an unborn fetus.
当我在高中时开始使用维甲酸来驯服我不守规矩的脸时，我的皮肤科医生列出了预防怀孕的选择，以避免对未出生的胎儿造成伤害。
A family member who was in the room interjected: “She’ll choose abstinence.” It was only after I left and my world opened up that I understood where I came from.
房间里的一位家人插话道：“她会选择禁欲。”直到我离开，我的世界打开了，我才明白我来自哪里。
That my hometown, and even my own family, bred secrecy.
我的家乡，甚至我自己的家人，都孕育着秘密。
If I wanted answers to questions—Should I be shaving?
如果我想要问题的答案——我应该刮胡子吗？
Why do I sometimes feel sad?—I had to find them elsewhere.
为什么我有时会感到悲伤？——我必须到别处去寻找他们。
So I swivelled for hours on an office chair in front of a wheezing PC.
所以我在一台办公椅上在一台喘息的电脑前转了几个小时。
It was here I learned of Frank’s work.
正是在这里我了解到了弗兰克的工作。
I remember the glow of the monitor in the dark upstairs hallway, the feeling of the mouse under my hand as I scrolled through secrets.
我记得楼上黑暗走廊里显示器的光芒，当我滚动浏览秘密时，鼠标在我手下的感觉。
I remember the padding of feet on stairs, the quick click of the X.
我记得楼梯上的脚步声，以及 X 的快速点击声。
Browser window vanished.
浏览器窗口消失了。
Over the years, Frank has developed a process for selecting secrets.
多年来，弗兰克开发了一种选择秘密的流程。
He sorts the most promising ones into a few boxes.
他把最有希望的分成几个盒子。
A good secret involves a particular alchemy of art and content.
一个好的秘密涉及艺术和内容的特殊炼金术。
He likes secrets he’s never heard before—there are fewer and fewer these days, but every once in a while something new will pop up—and secrets he has seen but which are presented in a surprising way.
他喜欢以前从未听过的秘密——现在越来越少了，但每隔一段时间就会有新的东西出现——以及他见过但以令人惊讶的方式呈现的秘密。
At this point, twenty years after the project began, he mostly relies on intuition to select those he posts to the website.
此时，项目开始二十年后，他主要依靠直觉来选择发布到网站上的内容。
He’s kept every postcard over the years, even during a cross-country move.
多年来，他保留了每张明信片，甚至在跨国搬家期间也是如此。
(The secrets he’s posted in the past decade are stored in his upstairs closet and garage; the rest are mostly on loan to the Museum of Us, in San Diego.) Every postcard, that is, except one.
（他在过去十年中发布的秘密都存放在他楼上的衣柜和车库里；其余的大部分都借给了圣地亚哥的我们博物馆。） 每一张明信片，除了一张。
He blames a relative for losing it.
他责怪一位亲戚失去了它。
On the website, the scrolling experience is simple enough—scroll, rectangle, scroll, next rectangle—but within the rectangles, something else is happening: a cacophony of colour, scrawl, scribble, cross-outs, stickers, stamps, maps, photographs, sketches.
在网站上，滚动体验非常简单——滚动、矩形、滚动、下一个矩形——但在矩形内，正在发生其他事情：不和谐的颜色、潦草、涂鸦、划掉、贴纸、邮票、地图、照片、草图。
Once, I saw locks of hair taped to a postcard; the writer said they collected the hair of children they babysat.
有一次，我看到明信片上贴着一绺头发；作者说他们收集了他们所照看的孩子的头发。
The spectre of tactility, if not tactility itself, reminds the viewer that there are thousands of people behind these postcards, and thousands of hours over the course of twenty years were spent creating them.
触觉的幽灵，即使不是触觉本身，也会提醒观众，这些明信片背后有成千上万的人，二十年来花费了数千个小时来创作它们。
Is this sociology?
这是社会学吗？
Psychology?
心理学？
Voyeurism?
偷窥狂？
The postcards are shaped like little windows, glimpses into someone’s life, devoid of context.
明信片的形状像小窗户，可以瞥见某人的生活，但没有背景。
Frank likes to think of them, in the collective, as a cross-section of human nature, and each week he tries to select a range of moods, including a smattering of lighthearted secrets to round out his postcard representation of the psyche, even though most of what he receives is dark.
弗兰克喜欢将它们视为人性的一个整体，每周他都会尝试选择一系列情绪，包括一些轻松愉快的秘密，以完善他在明信片上描绘的心灵，尽管他收到的大部分内容都是黑暗的。
I wondered if reading all these secrets gave him some sort of unique lens into who we are, but he’s not sure.
我想知道阅读所有这些秘密是否让他对我们是谁有了某种独特的视角，但他不确定。
Everyone has different parts of themselves or their lives that they’re afraid to acknowledge.
每个人都有自己或生活中不敢承认的不同部分。
Today, most secrets he receives are about relationships—either feeling dissatisfied with a partner or revolving around loneliness.
如今，他收到的大多数秘密都与人际关系有关——要么对伴侣感到不满意，要么与孤独有关。
“My hope is when people read the secrets each week they have no idea what I think about religion, politics, or feminism.
“我希望人们每周阅读这些秘密时，他们不知道我对宗教、政治或女权主义的看法。
I want to be across the board, so anyone can see themselves in a secret,” he said.
我想要全面，这样每个人都可以在秘密中看到自己，”他说。
“If it’s strong and offensive, guess what, people keep offensive, racist secrets in their heart.
“如果它是强烈的、令人反感的，你猜怎么着，人们就会在心里保留令人反感的、种族主义的秘密。
That’s part of the project—exposing that.” He doesn’t intentionally seek out racist or sexist secrets, and doesn’t post anything that’s “hardcore racist,” but he thinks there’s value in representing the less-than-savoury aspects of human nature, because that’s a true representation of who we are as a whole.
这是该项目的一部分——揭露这一点。”他并没有故意寻找种族主义或性别歧视的秘密，也没有发布任何“顽固的种族主义”的内容，但他认为表现人性中不那么令人愉快的方面是有价值的，因为这是我们作为一个整体的真实表现。
That said, there are some kinds of secrets he generally doesn’t post.
也就是说，有些秘密他通常不会发布。
He often doesn’t upload postcards written from the throes of suicidal ideation.
他经常不上传因自杀意念而写的明信片。
He doesn’t want the website to become a toxic cesspool of hopelessness.
他不希望该网站成为充满绝望的有毒污水坑。
He also doesn’t generally post the photos included with secrets when doing so might share with someone intimate knowledge that they didn’t know themselves.
他通常也不会发布包含秘密的照片，因为这样做可能会与某人分享他们自己不了解的亲密信息。
One postcard, for example, included a family photograph alongside a secret reading, My brother doesn’t realize his father isn’t the same as our father .
例如，一张明信片上附有一张家庭照片和一段秘密读物，“我的兄弟没有意识到他的父亲与我们的父亲不同”。
All the faces were visible.
所有的面孔都清晰可见。
What if the brother saw it and recognized himself?
万一弟弟看到了，认出了自己怎么办？
“I don’t feel like I have ownership of that secret,” Frank said.
“我不觉得我拥有这个秘密，”弗兰克说。
Instead, he posted the text.
相反，他发布了文字。
There’s no way to fact-check the secrets; Frank takes those sharing them at their word.
没有办法对秘密进行事实核查；弗兰克相信分享者的话。
In 2013, he posted a secret depicting an image from Google Maps and a red arrow.
2013 年，他发布了一个秘密，其中描绘了谷歌地图上的图像和红色箭头。
It read: I said she dumped me, but really, I dumped her (body) .
上面写着：我说她甩了我，但实际上，我甩了她（身体）。
After an internet uproar, Reddit users found that the location was in Chicago, someone called the police, and the police found nothing, eventually determining the secret was a hoax.
网络一片哗然后，Reddit用户发现该地点位于芝加哥，有人报了警，但警方一无所获，最终确定这个秘密是一场骗局。
Legally, Frank told me, the postcards are considered hearsay.
弗兰克告诉我，从法律上讲，这些明信片被视为传闻。
The secrets come without context, so Frank put me in touch with a handful of their authors so I could understand what inspired them to send him their postcards.
这些秘密没有任何背景，所以弗兰克让我联系了他们的几位作者，这样我就可以了解是什么促使他们向他寄明信片。
(Occasionally, the authors email him and reveal their identities.) One of them, Casey, was possessed by secrets for all of her childhood.
（偶尔，作者会给他发电子邮件并透露他们的身份。）其中之一，凯西，她的整个童年都被秘密所占据。
(Casey is a pseudonym; some people in this piece asked that their names be changed to maintain their privacy.) Her father discouraged his kids from making friends and conditioned in them a suspicion of other people.
（凯西是化名；这篇文章中的一些人要求化名以保护隐私。）她的父亲不鼓励孩子们交朋友，并让他们对他人产生怀疑。
Because he didn’t work, and because her mother, who she suspected had undiagnosed schizophrenia, was shuttered inside all day, Casey was forced to support the family financially.
因为他没有工作，而且她的母亲（她怀疑她患有未确诊的精神分裂症）整天被关在家里，凯西被迫在经济上养家糊口。
At age fourteen, she was collecting soda bottles for money.
十四岁时，她开始收集汽水瓶赚钱。
The roof was falling in.
屋顶塌陷了。
She was afraid to tell her family she was gay.
她不敢告诉家人她是同性恋。
When she left home for college in the early 2000s, she was finally able to make friends of her own accord.
2000年代初期，当她离家上大学时，她终于能够主动结交朋友。
All of them knew about PostSecret—it was, at the time, in its heyday—and they’d scroll through the entries every Sunday to compare favourites.
他们所有人都知道 PostSecret——当时它正处于鼎盛时期——他们每周日都会滚动浏览条目来比较最喜欢的条目。
Casey liked the honesty of PostSecret, how it gave voice to the unspoken.
凯西喜欢《PostSecret》的诚实，以及它如何让未说出口的事情发声。
Her father still had a psychic hold over her life, but she started opening up about her family to her new friends.
她的父亲仍然对她的生活有着精神上的控制，但她开始向她的新朋友敞开心扉谈论她的家庭。
One of them, Ramón, was gay, too, and not out to his family.
其中一位名叫拉蒙（Ramón）的人也是同性恋，但他并没有向家人出柜。
They soon became close.
他们很快就变得亲密起来。
He was an aspiring actor, extroverted and funny.
他是一位有抱负的演员，性格外向且有趣。
It seemed like he knew everyone, and in turn, everyone said he was their best friend.
似乎他认识每个人，反过来，每个人都说他是他们最好的朋友。
Casey and Ramón were the only people in their friend group who didn’t drink.
凯西和拉蒙是他们朋友圈子里唯一不喝酒的人。
They’d both grown up with unstable families and were afraid that alcohol would make them lose control.
他们都在不稳定的家庭中长大，害怕酒精会让他们失去控制。
But when, in junior year, she started experimenting with drinking, he cut off their friendship, accusing her of betraying her values.
但当她在大三时开始尝试喝酒时，他断绝了他们的友谊，指责她背叛了自己的价值观。
She was baffled and frustrated; she thought his response was extreme.
她感到困惑和沮丧；她认为他的反应很极端。
To do something with her frustration, she submitted a secret decorated with a photo of him in a Halloween costume reading: A real friend would have stayed around and helped me .
为了解决她的挫败感，她提交了一份秘密，上面装饰着他穿着万圣节服装的照片，上面写着：一个真正的朋友会留在身边帮助我。
She heard he’d seen the postcard and was furious, but they never really talked about it, and today, decades later, they’re no longer close.
她听说他看到了明信片，非常愤怒，但他们从未真正谈论过这件事，几十年后的今天，他们不再亲密了。
Casey doesn’t keep secrets anymore.
凯西不再保守秘密。
She doesn’t tolerate them.
她不能容忍他们。
Some secret-keepers described their postcard as liberating.
一些保守秘密的人形容他们的明信片是一种解放。
One woman, V., sent in a secret acknowledging that her infertility was a relief because she wouldn’t have to go off her bipolar medications while pregnant.
一位名叫 V. 的女性秘密发来一封信，承认她的不孕症让她松了口气，因为她在怀孕期间不必停止服用双相情感障碍药物。
She wanted to become a mother, but she felt that, even if fertile, her body wasn’t capable of carrying a baby, and she didn’t know how to tell her husband.
她想成为一名母亲，但她觉得，即使有生育能力，她的身体也没有能力怀上孩子，她不知道如何告诉丈夫。
When she wrote her secret, she stared at it on her table, and when it was posted, she stared at it on her screen.
当她写下自己的秘密时，她盯着桌子上的它，当它被发布时，她盯着屏幕上的它。
She was struck by the fact she could reveal her secret to the public but not to her partner, and decided to tell him how she felt.
她对自己可以向公众透露自己的秘密而不是向她的伴侣透露这一事实感到震惊，并决定告诉他她的感受。
Last September, they adopted a son.
去年9月，他们收养了一个儿子。
Others didn’t seem to think much about their secrets after the fact, I learned when I talked to Carl, aged sixty-seven, a former federal law enforcement agent who lives in Washington State.
我在与 67 岁的卡尔交谈时了解到，其他人似乎在事后并没有过多考虑他们的秘密。卡尔是一位住在华盛顿州的前联邦执法人员。
His postcard depicted a hand of eight playing cards.
他的明信片描绘了一手八张扑克牌。
With a Sharpie, he’d written in all caps: GAMBLING DESTROYED MY 4TH AND LAST MARRIAGE.
他用记号笔用大写字母写下了：赌博毁了我的第四次也是最后一次婚姻。
As we talked, he was to the point, answering questions in a sentence or two and never elaborating.
当我们交谈时，他开门见山，用一两句话回答问题，但从不详细说明。
I could picture him: a gruff, single, middle-aged man who left the house every once in a while to get a cup of coffee with a buddy.
我能想象出他的样子：一个粗暴、单身的中年男子，偶尔离开家去和朋友喝杯咖啡。
He must be lonely, though he’d never admit it, and gambling must have distracted him from his loneliness.
他一定很孤独，尽管他从来不承认这一点，而赌博一定分散了他的孤独感。
“I don’t have any secrets,” he said.
“我没有任何秘密，”他说。
“And if I did, I wouldn’t be telling you.”
“如果我知道，我就不会告诉你。”
In 2007, he found a postcard among the “boxes and boxes of crap” in his dead mother’s house.
2007年，他在已故母亲家里的“一箱又一箱垃圾”中发现了一张明信片。
At the time, the divorce from his fourth wife was fresh and he was feeling bitter, so he grabbed a Sharpie, scrawled his message, and put it in the mailbox.
当时，与第四任妻子离婚的事情让他记忆犹新，他心里很痛苦，于是他抓起一支记号笔，潦草地写下了自己的信息，然后把它投进了邮箱。
“That was that.
“就是这样。
I was blowing off steam,” he said.
我当时正在发泄气，”他说。
“It wasn’t some contemplative therapeutic thing.” Then, he told me something that upended my assumptions about him.
“这不是什么冥想治疗的事情。”然后，他告诉我一些事情，颠覆了我对他的假设。
“It wasn’t my gambling,” he said.
“这不是我的赌博，”他说。
“It was her gambling.”
“这是她的赌博。”
Some postcards are impulsive, I realized.
我意识到，有些明信片是冲动的。
And because the postcard hadn’t specified whose gambling was the issue, I’d filled in the gap.
由于明信片上没有具体说明谁的赌博问题，所以我填补了空白。
Fascinated by my own mental jump, I asked more questions.
我对自己的精神跳跃着迷，问了更多问题。
How long had they been married?
他们结婚多久了？
How did he learn about the gambling?
他是如何知道赌博的？
Four marriages?
四次婚姻？
What about the other three?
那其他三个呢？
To that last question, Carl said, “I don’t think that applies.”
对于最后一个问题，卡尔说：“我认为这不适用。”
I wanted to tell him: Of course it applies!
我想告诉他：当然适用！
I felt like his whole life was bound up in that postcard.
我觉得他的一生都被那张明信片束缚住了。
Something led to the breakup with his first wife, and his second, and his third, which then led him to his fourth, and to their breakup, and to this piece of mail that ended up on Frank’s website.
某种原因导致他与第一任妻子、第二任妻子和第三任妻子分手，然后又与第四任妻子分手，最后这封邮件出现在弗兰克的网站上。
I wanted his autobiography.
我想要他的自传。
I wanted to know everything.
我想知道一切。
Frank told me, “Most of our lives are secret.
弗兰克告诉我：“我们的大部分生活都是秘密的。
I think that in the same way that dark matter makes up ninety percent of the universe—this matter that we cannot see or touch or have any evidence of except for its effect on gravity—our lives are like that too.
我认为，就像暗物质占宇宙的百分之九十一样——这种物质除了对引力的影响之外我们看不到、摸不到，也没有任何证据——我们的生活也是如此。
The majority of what we are and who we are is kept private inside.
我们的大部分内容和我们是谁都被保密。
It might express itself in our behaviours, and our fears, and even in human conflict and celebration, but always in this sublimated way.”
它可能会在我们的行为、我们的恐惧，甚至人类的冲突和庆祝中表达出来，但总是以这种升华的方式。”
Carl was less philosophical.
卡尔不那么哲学化。
“This thing happened, I forgot about it, and now I’m talking to you.”
“这件事发生了，我都忘了，现在才跟你说。”
In the years after he created the website, Frank wrote several books and held live events, which were often sold-out with more than a thousand people in the audience.
在创建该网站后的几年里，弗兰克写了几本书并举办了现场活动，这些活动经常售罄，观众人数超过千人。
The events were usually scripted: Frank shared secrets he’d received and secrets of his own.
这些事件通常都是有剧本的：弗兰克分享他收到的秘密和他自己的秘密。
He was no longer the invisible curator.
他不再是隐形的策展人。
He was, instead, the very reason people gathered.
相反，他才是人们聚集的原因。
Today he doesn’t do many events, and he says he’s finished writing books.
今天他没有参加很多活动，他说他已经写完了书。
But at the height of PostSecret a decade ago, the events were central to his work—and underscore how much he values the catharsis that follows disclosure.
但在十年前《PostSecret》的鼎盛时期，这些事件是他工作的核心，并强调了他对披露后的宣泄有多么重视。
In 2013, Frank travelled to Australia for a PostSecret tour.
2013年，Frank前往澳大利亚进行PostSecret巡演。
At an event in Melbourne, he seemed comfortable assuming his central role; midway through the evening, he shared his own story.
在墨尔本的一次活动中，他似乎很乐意承担自己的核心角色；晚上的中间，他分享了自己的故事。
He played a voicemail from his mother, who’d seen a copy of Frank’s first book.
他播放了母亲发来的语音邮件，她母亲看过弗兰克的第一本书。
“I’m not too happy with it, so forget about mailing me one,” she said.
“我对此不太满意，所以别再给我寄了，”她说。
This, Frank told the audience, was not a surprise.
弗兰克告诉观众，这并不奇怪。
“My mom has been like that as long as I’ve known her.” His brother and father were estranged from her, but he and his mother still had a functional relationship.
“自从我认识她以来，我妈妈就是这样。”他的兄弟和父亲与她关系疏远，但他和母亲仍然保持着功能性关系。
“Even so, my earliest memories being around my mom are memories of having to have my defences up.
“即便如此，我最早和妈妈在一起的记忆就是必须加强防御的记忆。
I couldn’t let my guard down.
我不能放松警惕。
My earliest memories keeping secrets were from my mom,” he said.
我最早的保守秘密的记忆来自我妈妈，”他说。
He told the audience about his experience with the Pentecostal church.
他向观众讲述了他在五旬节教会的经历。
At the end of every service, he explained, members would share their testimonies, and the congregation would cheer and shout, “Amen!”
他解释说，每次礼拜结束时，成员们都会分享他们的见证，会众会欢呼并喊道：“阿门！”
Evoking that part of the service, Frank said he wanted to share his own testimony with the audience: If he could go back in time and erase all the moments in his life that had caused him pain and humiliation and suffering, he wouldn’t.
在谈到仪式的这一部分时，弗兰克说他想与观众分享自己的见证：如果他能回到过去并抹去生命中所有给他带来痛苦、羞辱和折磨的时刻，他不会的。
Each one of those moments, he said, had brought him to this moment and to the person he is today.
他说，那些时刻中的每一个时刻都让他走到了这一刻，也造就了今天的他。
He likes who he is today.
他喜欢今天的自己。
Suffering in silence led him to make PostSecret; the darkest parts of his past were inseparable from the parts of himself he liked now, and they made him a better father.
沉默的痛苦促使他做出了《PostSecret》；他过去最黑暗的部分与他现在喜欢的部分密不可分，它们使他成为一个更好的父亲。
If you can get through your own struggles, he told the audience, “you’ll have this beautiful story of healing, a story that you can share with others, others who are in that struggle.” Adopting a faint Southern accent, he asked, “Can I get a witness?
他告诉观众，如果你能度过自己的挣扎，“你就会拥有这个美丽的治愈故事，一个你可以与其他人分享的故事，与其他陷入困境的人分享的故事。”他操着淡淡的南方口音问道：“我可以找个证人吗？
Can I get an amen, brother?” Someone shouted amen.
兄弟，我可以求一句阿门吗？”有人喊阿门。
“Thank you, sister.” The theatre erupted into applause.
“谢谢你，姐姐。”剧场里爆发出热烈的掌声。
Then, Frank invited people to line up in the aisles and share their secrets.
然后，弗兰克邀请人们在过道上排队并分享他们的秘密。
When one woman stepped up to the microphone, she said, “About a year ago, my ex-boyfriend raped me.” Her voice broke, and through tears, she continued, “And then told me he was getting engaged the next day.
当一位女士走到麦克风前时，她说：“大约一年前，我的前男友强奸了我。”她声音哽咽，泪流满面，继续说道：“然后告诉我他第二天就要订婚了。
I think it’s about time I ask for help.” The audience applauded, and Frank commented that often the first step to making change in one’s life is sharing a secret.
我想是时候寻求帮助了。”观众鼓掌，弗兰克评论说，改变生活的第一步往往是分享秘密。
The woman left the microphone.
女人离开了麦克风。
The next person stepped up to share.
下一个人站出来分享。
There was something both beautiful and garish about this spectacle.
这景象既美丽又华丽。
I remembered my conversation with the Arkansas therapist and the idea of inappropriate vulnerability.
我记得我与阿肯色州治疗师的谈话以及不适当的脆弱的想法。
Watching the woman speak, I felt a mix of queasiness and regret and rubbernecking and curiosity.
看着那个女人说话，我感到一阵恶心、遗憾、犹豫和好奇。
It was the feeling I have when I reveal too much about myself too quickly, without the slow buildup of trust and intimacy.
当我太快地透露太多自己的信息，而没有慢慢建立信任和亲密关系时，我就会有这样的感觉。
Then the microphone went to another person, as if this were a conveyor belt of secrets, and there was no time to grapple with the weight of what had just been said.
然后麦克风传到另一个人那里，仿佛这是一条秘密的传送带，没有时间去思考刚刚所说的话的分量。
In a 2016 LitHub essay, the writer Erik Anderson accused Frank of profiting, however indirectly, from other people’s traumas with his books and speaker fees.
在 2016 年 LitHub 的一篇文章中，作家埃里克·安德森 (Erik Anderson) 指责弗兰克通过书籍和演讲费从他人的创伤中获利，无论这种方式是间接的。
Frank often refers to secrets as the currency of intimacy—we exchange our secrets and become deeper friends or partners—but to Anderson, they’re also Frank’s professional currency, the reason he has a career at all.
弗兰克经常将秘密称为亲密的货币——我们交换秘密并成为更深的朋友或合作伙伴——但对安德森来说，它们也是弗兰克的职业货币，是他拥有职业生涯的原因。
What happens to the secrets of PostSecret, he asks?
他问道，PostSecret 的秘密会怎样？
Does having a secret posted actually do anything beneficial for the sharer?
发布秘密实际上对共享者有什么好处吗？
“Warren’s feel good message about the healing benefits of disclosure, about self-actualization through confession, may elide a painful truth about secrets,” he writes.
他写道：“沃伦关于坦白的治愈效果和通过坦白实现自我的信息让人感觉良好，这可能会掩盖关于秘密的痛苦真相。”
“Once shared, especially anonymously, they become secrets again, hidden by and in the very excesses of the internet that made them possible.”
“一旦被分享，尤其是匿名分享，它们就会再次成为秘密，被隐藏在使它们成为可能的过度互联网之中。”
Frank told me he’s aware of the delicate role he plays as the keeper of people’s secrets.
弗兰克告诉我，他意识到自己作为人们秘密的守护者所扮演的微妙角色。
People trust him to treat their stories with care, so he’s never tried to monetize the website.
人们相信他会谨慎对待他们的故事，因此他从未尝试通过该网站获利。
It’s true, he says, that most of his income from the past decade has come from book advances and speaker fees.
他说，过去十年他的大部分收入确实来自图书预付款和演讲费。
But, he told me, “I don’t get too much negative feedback from anyone in the community.” And as for what happens to the secrets, he says he hopes that by sharing them, people might be motivated to take action.
但是，他告诉我，“我没有从社区中的任何人那里得到太多负面反馈。”至于这些秘密会发生什么，他说他希望通过分享这些秘密，人们可能会采取行动。
Or perhaps, like on the suicide hotline, they can begin to see their secrets differently.
或者，也许，就像自杀热线一样，他们可以开始以不同的方式看待自己的秘密。
We often assign secrets a physical weight; maybe by making them public, we can make them lighter, or smaller.
我们经常给秘密分配一个物理权重；也许通过公开它们，我们可以使它们更轻或更小。
But none of that is guaranteed.
但这一切都没有保证。
For an hour, the theatre in Melbourne was transformed into a church of secrets.
一小时内，墨尔本的剧院变成了一座秘密教堂。
In the church of secrets, pain is pedagogy.
在秘密教会中，痛苦就是教育学。
Pain must teach us something, must have meaning, or else how could we live through it?
痛苦必须教会我们一些东西，必须有意义，否则我们怎么能度过它呢？
We turn pain into a story, and make that story public in the hopes that we might get something in return.
我们把痛苦变成一个故事，并将这个故事公开，希望我们能得到一些回报。
Empathy.
共情。
Action.
行动。
Friendship.
友谊。
Money.
钱。
If I could go back, I would never choose pain.
如果可以重来，我绝不会选择痛苦。
I have a secret —this is the language we use.
我有一个秘密——这就是我们使用的语言。
We possess secrets, hold them close, though sometimes, perhaps, it’s better said that secrets possess us.
我们拥有秘密，并紧紧抓住它们，尽管有时，也许，更好的说法是秘密拥有我们。
And by secrets I mean the things we feel we cannot say, and so no one says them.
我所说的秘密是指我们觉得不能说、所以没有人说出来的事情。
What I mean by secret is taboo.
我所说的秘密是禁忌。
What I mean by secret is fear.
我所说的秘密是指恐惧。
Around a year ago, when I was in California for the holidays, a high school friend who I’ll call Sam invited me to meet in a park.
大约一年前，当我在加利福尼亚州度假时，一位我称之为萨姆的高中朋友邀请我在公园见面。
Another friend, Alex, was in town too.
另一位朋友亚历克斯也在城里。
I hadn’t seen either of them in years.
我已经很多年没见过他们了。
We sat underneath a cypress tree and threw a rubber Frisbee to the Australian shepherd Sam was dog-sitting.
我们坐在一棵柏树下，向正在看护狗的澳大利亚牧羊人萨姆扔了一个橡胶飞盘。
The air smelled of salt.
空气中弥漫着盐味。
The grass itched our legs.
草让我们的腿发痒。
Sam told us she’d been going to sex therapy with her husband, who she married when she was twenty-three.
萨姆告诉我们，她二十三岁时嫁给了她的丈夫，她一直在接受性治疗。
She was now twenty-seven.
她现在二十七岁了。
She and her husband were both deconstructing from the church, a painful personal reckoning with a culture that preached sexual purity.
她和她的丈夫都在解构教会，这是对宣扬性纯洁的文化的痛苦个人清算。
She’d always felt guilty about sex, and she didn’t know about pleasure.
她总是对性感到内疚，并且不知道什么是快乐。
“I didn’t start going to the gynecologist until after college,” I offered in commiseration.
“我直到大学毕业后才开始去看妇科医生，”我表示同情。
“Until tenth grade I thought having sex was just sleeping next to each other.”
“直到十年级，我都认为做爱只是睡在一起而已。”
“I always felt so observed,” said Alex, the first of us to have a boyfriend in high school.
“我总是觉得自己很受关注，”亚历克斯说，他是我们中第一个在高中就有男朋友的人。
“You were observed,” I said.
“你被观察了，”我说。
We laughed, and I sat back and marvelled.
我们笑了，我坐下来惊叹不已。
The three of us had slept together on blow-up mattresses and swum at the beach and splashed in backyard pools but had never really talked—at least, not about the things we considered secrets.
我们三个人一起睡在充气床垫上，在海滩上游泳，在后院的游泳池里戏水，但从未真正交谈过——至少没有谈论过我们认为秘密的事情。
We were women now.
我们现在是女人了。
All these years later, we’d finally found the words.
这么多年过去了，我们终于找到了合适的词。
I wondered if Frank had ever been able to talk openly with his family.
我想知道弗兰克是否曾经能够与他的家人公开交谈。
PostSecret was, after all, partly inspired by the difficulties of his upbringing.
毕竟，《PostSecret》的部分灵感来自于他成长过程中的困难。
Frank told me his father was initially skeptical of the project, finding it voyeuristic, and maybe unnecessary.
弗兰克告诉我，他的父亲最初对这个项目持怀疑态度，认为它是偷窥行为，而且可能没有必要。
But eventually he began to appreciate the project and even told Frank something he’d been holding in for a while.
但最终他开始欣赏这个项目，甚至告诉弗兰克一些他已经坚持了一段时间的事情。
But Frank’s mother never came around.
但弗兰克的母亲始终没有出现。
When we were sitting on his patio in Laguna Niguel, I asked about her a few times, and he told me a story.
当我们坐在尼古湖他的露台上时，我几次问起她，他给我讲了一个故事。
When he was a teenager, after he’d moved to Illinois, Frank got into a fight with her.
当他十几岁的时候，搬到伊利诺伊州后，弗兰克和她打了一架。
He can’t remember what happened, only that he’d probably done something to anger her.
他不记得发生了什么，只记得他可能做了一些激怒她的事情。
He ran to his room and locked the door.
他跑回自己的房间，锁上了门。
His mom pounded on the door with a mop, broke through one of the panels, and reached her hand through to unlock the door.
他妈妈用拖把敲打门，打破了其中一块面板，然后伸手打开门。
Frank ran into his bathroom and opened the window.
弗兰克跑进浴室，打开窗户。
It was snowing and dark outside, around 9 p.m.
晚上 9 点左右，外面下雪了，天黑了。
He climbed through the window and ran a block down the street to his friend’s house.
他爬出窗户，沿着街道跑了一个街区，来到了朋友家。
He and his friend started talking as though this were a normal hangout, but eventually, his friend looked down at his feet.
他和他的朋友开始交谈，就好像这是一个正常的聚会，但最终，他的朋友低头看着他的脚。
“Where are your shoes?” Frank was wearing only socks.
“你的鞋子在哪儿？”弗兰克只穿着袜子。
I asked another question.
我又问了一个问题。
Gently, without drawing attention to what he was doing, Frank changed the subject.
弗兰克轻轻地改变了话题，没有引起别人注意他在做什么。
It was the first time I’d seen him withhold information.
这是我第一次看到他隐瞒信息。
He didn’t want to talk about his mother anymore, and I didn’t need to know.
他不想再谈论他的母亲，我也不需要知道。
Meg Bernhard is a journalist and essayist based in Las Vegas.
梅格·伯恩哈德 (Meg Bernhard) 是一位驻拉斯维加斯的记者和散文家。
Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.
她的作品曾出现在《纽约时报杂志》、《纽约客》、《哈珀杂志》、《弗吉尼亚季刊评论》等杂志上。
Her first book, Wine, with Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, was published last year.
她的第一本书《葡萄酒》与布卢姆斯伯里的实物课程系列于去年出版。
The author of Dayspring discusses queerness, Christianity, and the anxious sense that history is over.
《黎明之春》的作者讨论了酷儿、基督教以及历史终结的焦虑感。