You know those dreams you get every once in a while where you know when you wake up you had a multi-million dollar idea but you can’t remember it for shit? Yeah, me too. Well, the next time I have one and I can remember it, I’m going to write it down. Right here. Before I forget.

And I suppose you will take it straight down to the Idea Office and cash in on it and then buy one of those big houses up the hill from my house where you look down on me and you don’t even know how many bedrooms you have.

1. Shifting the focus of conversations

So here’s something. Do you think it would help us all out if we paid more attention to what we focus on in our conversations. I was thinking the other day that we often focus our discussions (at the grocery checkout, on the front porch, waiting in line for the Hammer ride) on issues we probably can’t resolve. The most famous, of course, is the weather. We use it as a filler when we don’t know what else to say. But all the conversations in the world won’t keep the rain from coming down, so I wonder why we do it.

And politics. In general, we seem to not be able to avoid it even though most of us know we’re only supporting ourselves and our positions, and sometimes we might even alienate others. But still we do it. I wonder if anyone has ever thought about the impact of diverting the focus of conversations to more benign topics, like don’t I look good in that blue sweater, or I hope you have a great day at work today, you know, stuff like that. Maybe I’ll think of a name for this and market it.