The Secret is to dress like a Kung Fu Master (if you are male-identified) or in evening wear (if you are of the lady persuasion.)

The other secret "...is defined as the law of attraction, which states that like attracts like. The concept says that the energy you put into the world—both good and bad—is exactly what comes back to you. This means you create the circumstances of your life with the choices you make every day."

Way back to the Park Ave porch in Columbus, circa 98, I had a conversation with Kristen Reda, who is entirely composed of earthy goodness and love, about life. Even without the assistance of Oprah or a Kung Fu Master, Kristen had been able to distill this same Secret from the wisdom of the ancients, lots of weed, Erykah Badu, and yoga. As we all know: you get back what you put out, most of the time. Sometimes. Because when I asked Kristen about the 15 year old girl who had been raped in Goodale Park the previous week, "had she put the desire to be cut and raped out into the Universe?" she said yes and I had to stop listening.

The question of human pain and failure is the one I have attempted to answer about myself, my mother, the inhabitants of a small Armenian village, and via around 50 American children in the foster care system. Amidst these journeys I was also aging in the way that people of my kind age, and now I'm 30, and the desire to have answers is leaving me in steady trickle. I think it's true that if you act in a loving way, and believe you desire love, and give love freely, you will receive love. But I don't think it's true--and I haven't been to Darfur, so I don't really know--that if you don't believe that the Janjaweed are going to slice off your penis or rape you, then they won't, because you didn't put that out into the Universe. And then there is the sad fact that if you kick and kick and burn and deny a person love, they usually end up really, really unpleasant people, guarded and rageful and difficult to love. You put out into the Universe what you have received, and when you get really close to excruciatingly pained people, I have found that Secrets and answers become completely superfluous.

The Secret did not result in my having wings, but something else will. I have a network of geniuses with giant hearts from whom I need daily affirmation and advice, only one of whom is a nationally read advice columnist, the rest of whom are people I get to talk to and touch on a regular basis. In this next month I expect the focus of my thoughts will continue to shift from messy questions of pain and empathy to "What do you think of my bangs and do you want to date me?" The Secret is my bangs, jerks.