There’s a little book I read recently and again took it out last night. Title, Notes From A Public Typewriter, I was fascinated by the words people chose to type on a piece of paper – in a public place.
You’d think they’d feel vulnerable and limit it to words such as, “hi”, “the sky is blue”, or something innocuous and random – and there certainly was plenty of that. However, many of the words left behind by strangers who walked into a bookstore were deeply vulnerable. Words they’d probably never speak to a person or perhaps not even in the pages of a diary.
Why?
The reason I hunted for this book off of my shelf yesterday was that I was at a public event this weekend and a vendor had a public typewriter on display available for anyone to type a few words. Most people typed and took the page with them, but some left them behind. I looked at a few of the words permanently embossed into the paper and I was quite surprised at what they chose to type.
How is it that when a person places the tips of their fingers on the key of a typewriter, it somehow draws on the hidden places inside of our soul? And even more perplexing, why do people feel safe to expose such raw thoughts – and genuinely honest – in a public setting? I thought they’d feel more cautious, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
Perhaps it’s because we all have this deep desire to be incredibly real and truthful and never have that opportunity in our everyday moments. Here, we can type dangerous words, then walk away. With that, there is something subconsciously satisfying about taking abstract thoughts, what’s really on our mind, expressing it publically and permanently, but then walking away knowing it will forever be anonymous, yet what remains buried in our mind has been said.
Why do we hide?
Every person thinks they’re the only one going through what they’re going through or wrestling with the thoughts in their head. This book and my encounter last weekend are opening my eyes to how much we all hide.
Hiding what’s really on our minds.
While I can’t speak for others, for my part, I hide behind a pen name and reserve the majority of my thoughts for my own silent musings for a variety of reasons:
- Feels safer
- So I don’t make others uncomfortable
- Fear of other people’s opinions
- Don’t want other people’s opinions
- Protect the feelings of others
- Knowing not everything needs to be said (out loud)
- Uncertainty – still pondering
- Don’t want to be misunderstood
- Knowing my thoughts, expressed, would create problems in certain relationships
- Don’t want my thoughts brushed off or dismissed by those I choose to share them with.
Certainly there are other reasons that I may or may not understand. However, I will say, I find comfort in reading the thoughts/words of strangers. When I hear such words directly from the mouth of a person, I immediately subconsciously add my judgment to those words. Prejudice based on either what I know about them, perceive of them, or how they appear outwardly.
We all do this. All of us.
I suppose that’s the main reason I don’t share some of my thoughts – and why we all hide in some manner; we know there will be a measure of prejudice in the ear of the receiver. No matter who they are.
But our words, in the eyes of a stranger, stranger-to-stranger, make our thoughts far more impactful, relatable…and heard.
All I know is that as I read words typed by people I knew nothing about nor did I know anything about them, I could see a person in those words, a human being. Not a man, woman, child, conservative, liberal, rich, poor, etc. Just a human being, created by God, who wanted to say something without pretense and without prejudice.
And it was nice to hear.