"There are two kinds of secrets: the ones you keep from the people you know and the ones we keep from ourselves."

That is main premise of PostSecret.com, an online blog created by Frank Warren, who spoke to K-State students and local community members in a crowded Union Ballroom last night. Through PostSecret, people can mail postcards with their own secrets, or post them online anonymously.

Warren said the idea for PostSecret started with a dream one night while visiting France. According to Postsecretcommunity.com, Warren purchased three postcards while in France and dreamed that the first card read "Unrecognized evidence, forgotten journeys, unknowingly rediscovered," the second one's message was about a "reluctant oracle," and the third he could not understand at the time.

After waking the next morning, Warren went to work creating the same things he saw in his dream on actual postcards. In January 2004, Warren started the "Reluctant Oracle," a project where he passed out blank postcards to people on the streets of Washington, D.C. and revealed a new postcard to be discovered every Sunday. As he published each week's results he gained local, national and international attention for the stunt. On the last message he placed, "You will find your answers in the secrets of strangers." The next Sunday, PostSecret was born.

PostSecret, and the fact that Warren was coming to speak inspired Barbara Pearson and K-State's Art Appreciation Society to start an art project using secrets from K-State students in conjunction with Warren's talk. Students across campus anonymously submitted secrets on postcards which were then turned into an art project displayed in front of the Union food court yesterday.

About 35 postcards ranged from, "I have Epilepsy, deal with it" to, "I have a fear of commitment, but if he asked I would say ‘Yes.'"

Kristen Brant, president of the Art Apprecation Society, said she thinks things like PostSecret exist so people have an outlet to get things off their chest. She said people often want to get their struggles "out there" and that outlets like PostSecret can help them adjust.

Warren had his own ideas on why so many people are drawn to and trust PostSecret with sometimes intense and emotional secrets.

"I think it's the honesty, the vulnerability that people are willing to expose, and it's something you can't fake," Warren said. "When they see the art and feel the poetry of the secret, they can sense how very authentic it is and I think in this day and age you don't get that kind of authentic content especially from everyday people."

It was everyday people, however, who attended the event Monday night and both Warren and many attendees were most impacted by the question and answer session at the end of the event.

During the presentation, Warren, whose father graduated from K-State with a degree in Architecture, explained he is the "most trusted stranger in America" and soon the audience learned what it was like to receive that kind of trust as students stood up and shared their own secrets in front of the packed Union Ballroom. Some secrets brought both the sharer and the listeners to tears and caused other members of the audience to think about their own secrets and who to tell.

Sarah Kendall, senior in life sciences, said she recently became interested in PostSecret and she was incredibly touched by seeing people share their experiences and listen to those of others.

Many students within the audience became emotional after hearing some secrets, a phenomena which Warren explained was simply from the connection as someone who shares the same secret.

Sammy Klaver, sophomore in pre-psychology, said she experienced that connection during the event.

"I feel like every time I read a secret it opens up a new emotion and you feel just that more connected with the world around you," Klaver said.

Warren said most people struggle with the ability to gain the courage to "let a secret go". He said many people feel a release after completing the process of writing a secret, physically putting it into a mailbox and letting a complete stranger look at something that is possibly emotionally trying, hilarious, or normal, but always important to their life.

Brant agreed with Warren and said that simply doing this even compelled her to send in her own secret to PostSecret.

Warren had a simple explanation for why so many students were willing to share intimate facts about their lives.

"I think young people are more alive than older people and I think as you get older you feel a certain way and try to work hard to project yourself that way and have a certain image," Warren said. "When you are in college you are just searching for that [image] and the world and finding out who you are and I think that when you are in that place it's a lot easier not only to identify your secrets but to even have the courage to share them with the people you know."