The hardest lesson that I’m learning in my life right now is to keep others’ concern for privacy above my own desire for transparency. In many ways, this shouldn’t be difficult for me—I already have to compartmentalize a lot of things for work. [Example: I'll tell you who I work for and what I do, and I'll even point to media coverage of our work, but past that, I have to be very tight-lipped as a professional courtesy.] But when it comes to personal things, I’m typically quite open, as you might expect if you’ve been reading things I’ve written on the Internet for any length of time.

Why this is hard for me to do is irrelevant. It’s important for me to do it to keep from continuing to hurt people that I love and care about deeply. I’ve betrayed some confidences lately in ways I didn’t consider [at the time] to be all that closely held. I’m now quite clear that I was wrong about that. Knowing that I’ve caused pain in this situation … well, any words I’d have for it aren’t quite adequate to the task.

I guess it’s important to say that, as much as I can, I’ll be open about me. But I’ll have to be closed about other things, and I’ve got to learn to do that well. It’s vitally important.