A metaphor for intellectual creations.

Adam Kessel talks about Ray Bradbury talking about Michael Moore. That's not what I thought was interesting, though. What I found interesting was this bit about intellectual property:

Fundamentally, though, it's not about money, it's about control. One of the points John Zorn makes repeatedly in the documentary A Bookshelf On Top Of The Sky is that you can't control a work of art you've created. It's not really "yours" any more than a child you create is "yours." You have all these ideas about what you want your child to be and what you want your child to do, but it takes on a life of its own and you just have to let it go.

Emphasis mine. This is exactly right. "My" daughter is "mine" only to the point that I had a hand in creating her. Where she goes and what she does is not entirely under my control. As she gets older, her fate is more and more out of my hands.

Likewise, I put words out on a web site, and they're no longer under my control. Like manure dropped in the forest, I can't tell what will grow from them. It might be weeds or trees or merely moss. Hopefully in the long run, the forest is a better place for it. I can hope, and I can try to have an influence, but it's ultimately out of my hands.