When Your Soul Hides in a Folder Named Random

I have seventeen poems in a folder labeled “Random Documents” on my laptop. They’re disguised among tax files and grocery lists, as if my creative impulses were contraband requiring camouflage. Each one emerged from some authentic moment—grief, wonder, confusion—yet I guard them more carefully than my bank passwords.

We create in private what we’re too afraid to share in public, as if artistic expression were an embarrassing bodily function rather than the most human thing we do.

The fear isn’t rejection—it’s recognition. When we show someone our art, we’re showing them a piece of our soul rendered visible, our inner landscape made manifest. A painting reveals how we see color and light. A song exposes our relationship with rhythm and emotion. A story unveils what we find meaningful enough to preserve in words.

Happy has never read my poems. Not because she wouldn’t appreciate them, but because they contain versions of myself I’m still learning to accept. In one, I write about feeling like a stranger in my own life. In another, about the particular loneliness of being misunderstood by people who love you. These aren’t thoughts I can easily speak aloud, but they exist fully formed in my hidden folder, waiting.

I think about the millions of songs unplayed, paintings unseen, stories untold—not because they lack merit, but because their creators chose safety over vulnerability. We write in journals we hide, sing in empty rooms, dance when no one’s watching. The most honest art happens in private, where judgment can’t reach it.

Arash draws constantly but rarely shows anyone his work unless asked directly. Even at eleven, he’s learned to protect his creative impulses from external evaluation. He creates for the joy of creating, then quietly files away the evidence before anyone can comment on technique, subject matter, or whether it’s “good enough.”

The privacy allows for experimentation without performance, for failure without audience, for authenticity without translation. In my hidden folder, I don’t worry about whether my metaphors make sense to others or whether my emotional honesty will make readers uncomfortable. The art exists purely for itself, uncontaminated by the need to communicate or impress.

But hiding our art also impoverishes the world. How many beautiful things remain unseen because their creators couldn’t bear the vulnerability of sharing? How many connections go unmade because we keep our most honest expressions locked away? The art that moves us most deeply is usually the art that reveals something true about being human—the very thing we’re most afraid to show.

Sometimes I imagine discovering that hidden folder after my death. Would Happy understand something about me she never knew while I was alive? Would Arash see dimensions of his father that were invisible in daily life? The thought is both comforting and tragic—comforting because my truest self would finally be visible, tragic because it would be too late for that visibility to create connection.

The safest art is often the least necessary. We hide the expressions that emerge from our deepest places while freely sharing the surface-level creativity that mirrors what others have already accepted. We show our imitations and hide our innovations, display our echoes and conceal our authentic voice.

Perhaps the real question isn’t why we hide our art, but what would happen if we didn’t. What if vulnerability became a creative practice? What if sharing our most honest expressions was seen not as self-indulgence but as service—offering others the gift of recognizing themselves in our courage to be seen?

The poems in my hidden folder aren’t waiting for perfection. They’re waiting for courage. And maybe that’s the most human thing about art: not that we create it, but that we often love it too much to let it risk being unloved by others.