Because secrets do not increase in value if kept in a gore-ian lockbox, because one's past is either made useful or else mutates and becomes cancerous. We share things for the obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not... See more

All creative work is at bottom a means of self-liberation and a coping mechanism — for the loneliness, the despair, the chaos and contradiction within. It is the best means we have of transmuting that which gnaws at us into something that nourishes, and yet how little of that private ferment is visible in the finished work

This is, I think, at the root of why I like reading private notes so much. There are so few places where we get to be close to other people and see the messy humanity they carry behind the identities they have polished for society life. There are so few places where we can apprentice ourselves to the unspeakable labors of thinking and feeling that... See more