I met with a prominent doctor recently. He opened by joking that he wanted the assurance that what we were about to discuss would not make my blog.

I told him I couldn’t do that. He stopped laughing.

I get what he was asking and I always respect confidentiality. But when you think about it, it’s an absurd request. The reality is that every conversation changes the way we think and see the world. Everything we read, see and hear changes our views. And just about everything that I see and hear that’s of any value is captured, reviewed, tagged, categorized, and kept available for later retrieval. My own ideas that just come to me are grabbed and stored with a title for later use.

When you engage someone through conversation or media you shape them. And the legislation of someone else’s creative thinking is tricky business.

Don’t tell me that your our discussion can’t change how I think or the trajectory I take. When you so much as pass by me, you may find the way you moved me in something that I make. But that’s not such a bad thing.

For the record, in ten years and nearly 800 posts no one has complained about the way I process ideas here.