NARCISSISM-I always thought blogs were for people who really want to talk about themselves, but can't find anyone to listen nearby, so they post and hope that maybe a few out of the billion internetted people will validate their musings. Actually that really describes me, so here I sit hoping that if I can craft letters into a string of witty words people will like me. It is amazing to me how much effort I exude just to get people to like me. If you aren't like that, you've got to at least applaud the fact that I am starting to become self-aware of my narcissism. The more I think about it, I might just need you to applaud me to keep that narcissism going.

It's important for you to know where I am coming from and more importantly what I am listening to as I write. If you are one of those mystical types who connect deeply to spirit through art and other cool stuff you have to feel, you might even want to listen to the same stuff I am as you read. My ears are enjoying James Blunt. Actually, I was watching him for a while. I bought his song "You're Beautiful" on iTunes and it came with the video. I've only heard the song about 5 times (all in the last hour in a semi-obsessed manner), so there's no way I know what it means yet, but something really struck me in the video. The whole video is him sitting half-naked in the snow, often just a close-up of his singing face.

I'm guessing the song is about love and not getting love from the one he loves, but all I really hear is what I see. This guy must really like himself to think we will just watch him stand there and sing. So as I am thinking this, and watching him, and condemning him, and realizing I am him. I want people to look. I want them to look deep within my soul and say "I love you."

Was that sappy? That's what he's saying in the song. That's what we all say in blogs, in words, in what we wear, in how and who we fight, in who we try to connect ourselves with, and even in our search for truth, for something bigger. We want people to know us, to know the raw us, the real us and say " I like what I see."

I heard this segment on NPR this morning (I like saying I listen to NPR. It makes me look open-minded and intellectual) about another blog at www.postsecret.com where people can send in their secret(s) on a home made post card. The creator talked about how liberating it was for people to share their secrets. Now, I know the psychological theory behind this concept, this dealing with reality. I have studied and researched this in the past. This idea of freedom coming from letting our guard down, the shining of a flashlight in the dark corners of our souls. It is liberating to take a brake from the pretending and the shame that comes with it and say here I am, here is the worst part about me, take it or leave it, please pick take it.

Still I had to see the site for myself. It is raw. So painful and sad. Naked. Some of the secrets hurt to read. What must it be like to hold these secrets in. It has to feel like swallowing bombs and hoping the gasoline in your stomach won't set them off, or that anyone will notice your bloated bomb-belly. Every secret represented loneliness, yet now the secrets belong to the community.

I guess its working. The creator is selling books and people are feeling healed and it did get an NPR segment, so I guess its got that going for it.

Isn't that what I am doing here? Tonight, I start blogging, in hopes that I can stand here half-naked in the cold, and you will watch. My fear? My fear is that by hiding behind my computer screen to say these things I will slip and say something really authentic, dark, upsetting, controversial and/or just weird and I will be standing in the snow completely naked, totally transparent. Can you see me there? Do you see my narcissism?

Maybe you will see yourself there too. Maybe we will end up together as a community of people naked in the snow. Our warmth will be that we are there together, knowing fully each others secrets and telling each other "I love you." Will you love me?