Tim writes that he's having trouble sleeping because of "having to decide a person's fate." Completely reasonable to me. I've heard similar things from everyone I've ever known who's served on a jury, and though I haven't had jury duty yet, I personally understand the sentiment. I've often said that I went into design because "I can't kill anyone with it." I'm being funny when I say it, but it actually is true. I don't want to have responsibility over anyone else's life, not even as a lawyer or doctor, for example. For one thing, I believe strongly in karma.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of personal work to do to better adhere to my belief system. For instance, I am not always generous in my thoughts of others (ok, understatement), which is part of why I also have a private blog (and, by the way, even though it's not public I still would call it a blog because it's available to me from anywhere I have a net connection, and the bonus is that I'm not carrying around a less secure hardcopy). Another part of the reason is that both my private and public blogs inform each other; writing in one often leads me to post in the other. Recently, for example, I wrote here that I'd been "rudderless" the first time I married – that was something of an epiphany about my relationships in general, and I immediately had to spend some time privately exploring it.

Nevertheless, secrecy is a curious thing to me. I've spent a considerable amount of my life trying to be open, to avoid keeping secrets. Secrets have always gotten me in trouble. I was intrigued by a news article a few days ago about a Christian group reaching out to men of their faith who secretly view porn online. It seems to me that you have a problem if you're secretly viewing anything online – even something as tame as my blog (and, as Josh Cagan puts it in his blog's subtitle, "you know who you are").

[Next: The gravity of orbiting bodies.]