The Habari Community is an interesting blend of people, and the fact that I was honored with membership in the Project Management Committee means that, in the eyes of the the other PMC members, I bring something important to that community. I feel that it would be useful for me to articulate what I see as my personal philosophy for what I bring to the Habari community, and why. I'm not much of a coder, and my visual design skills are no where near the level of many of the other community members, but what I think I do well is articulate what "typical" users look for, and help look at the long term results of decisions we make.

I feel that the overall goal of Habari is to become the best blogging platform available. This means that Habari needs to meet the needs and expectations of users. It also needs to be a stable project that has a responsive development community, and long-term support. In order to achieve these goals, we must build a system for supporting and encouraging growth, while maintaining high standards within the development and support of the application. I feel that, at this stage in Habari's development we're not just building an application, we're building Habari as a whole. The software, the documentation, the community, the process, and the ethics are all a part of what makes Habari what it is. We need to develop all of these in order to see Habari be what it truly can be. The software is the base on which it's built, but the rest are what bring people to the code and keep them involved. While the development of Habari is driven by the people who write the code, the growth of the community is dependent on the users. We must always keep the users forefront in our minds when making decisions about the directions we go with Habari; not only the users we have now, but those we will have in the future. If we are to write the best blogging platform, we need to be sure that the code isn't the only aspect we're developing with each release.

I was reading Chris J. Davis' post "Emptyness" today and it made me want to say something about art in my life.
Chris said, "I see the world through the eyes of the artist again, and dear God it scares me to death. "
That fear is, in my mind, a fantastic thing. It's so hard to know who you are, and even harder to live the life you want in your heart of hearts, but when you find it and go after it, the terror is a fulfillment in itself.
I am not an artist. I am, on my best days, a talented craftsman. I am a tinkerer. I take ideas that exist and try to make them fit into my life, and to be just a bit better when I can. I combine that which already exists and make something new out of it. Occasionally, when I am very, very lucky, my craft crosses the line and becomes art, but it does that of its own merit, not my own. I'm not trying to come off as modest or self-effacing. I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of the skill that my craft requires. There's a quote I use in my sig file: "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral." (Antoine De Saint-Exupery) The person who can envision that Cathedral and communicate that vision, is an artist. But it is the Craftsmen who actually turn a rock pile into a cathedral.

Try to figure out who you are... artist, craftsman, scientist, laborer, explorer, anything. And then be that person. Even if you have a job that pays the bills, that doesn't have to be who you are. If you have a job you love, and go home from every day feeling proud, you are lucky, because you have found who you are, and have managed to make that your job as well. But if you have a job that is just a job, don't let it become your identity. If you are an accountant, but every day when you get home, you make collages from magazines, then you are not an accountant, you are a collagist. If you are a police officer who writes potetry on your napkins at lunch, you are not a police officer, you are a poet. If you are a painter of portraits, but in your spare time, you tend a plant that grows in your apartment, you are not a painter, but a gardener. You can be who you are, regardless of your job. Be who you are and enjoy it. If you do that, you will probably enjoy the other things in life just a bit more as well. Even your job.

I got a great comment on a recent post that I'd like to respond to.

If you have the logical mind and work ethic to make this site, you can write well. It just takes the committment to do so, and the guts to be both self-critical enough to edit yourself, and self-permissive enough to hit the Post button when more editing would only be getting in the way of the topic. ... The universal truths of our lives are most evident at the macro and micro ends of the scale. ... "Ships are safe in the harbor, but that is not why ships are built." You built this boat, time to sail her"

First, I'd like to thank phaTTboi for a well written comment. But here's the thing, when I say I'm not a writer, I say it with no regret. Writing, as phaTTboi pointed out, requires work ethic. I don't have that. Not when it comes to writing. There are things I have done that I had no interest in, but that I needed to do. I've waited tables, made fried chicken, janitored, worked in warehouses, and other things that ranged from interesting (Chicago carriage driver) to just plain awful (concrete plant with klansmen). But none of these things were things I thought, for even a moment, I would make a lasting part of my life.
Then there are the things that I do, because I want to do them. Pay or no pay. This is what theatre is to me (By the way in my world theatre is the art and craft, theater is the building.) I will always do theatre. If it is, one day, not my profession, it will always be my vocation. I love photography. And I love building web pages, crazy as that may be.
Then there's the things I've tried, that interest me, but I know that I will not pursue. Acting, painting... and writing. These things take lots of hard work to do well. I think I could do it if I put forth the effort needed. But that's the thing. To me, the reward is not in proportion to the work. Never when I was acting would I feel as content at the end of a show as I do when I watch the opening from the house and know I put the lights up. Seeing a painting come together doesn't excite me the way coding a page does. And I've seen good writing. I love good writing, but my writing isn't great, and I don't care enough about how great my writing is to put forth the effort to make it great. I know that. It's not where my passion lies. I believe [my brother] can be a great writer, and he wants to be a great writer. So I encourage him to write. He can write while I code and waste film.
I'm exceptionally lucky in that one of my passions is also my profession. I hope that remains true throughout my life. If I get one good picture out of a roll of film, I'm happy. When a show goes up and I get that momentary thrill, it makes the weeks of pain that it takes to get there seem insignificant. My writing will never be that way to me... and I don't mind. I'll keep writing, but I'll never be a writer. But I'll never be a chicken, and that doesn't bother me either.

Life goes on. For most of us. It may go on a little differently than before, but it does go on. The news coverage is no longer overwhelming, the celebrity concerts have begun. Flags have returned to full staff. The show is up. I'm getting ready to move. And all in all, life goes on. And yet...
I look at the planes in the sky a little more closely. I've always loved airplanes, and in a week and a half I'll be getting in one again to go visit the most beautiful woman in the world. (who, strange as it may seem, loves me too) I also look up a bit more when I go to work. The John Hancock building is right there and I can't help but wonder if its design would hold up any better. I look at the flags in people's windows and wonder how long they'll stay. Will I put mine back up in my new apartment? And I sit and watch the news and wonder, when the bombs start falling... will we be more careful about who they fall on then the people we're trying to get were? What makes America better than Afghanistan? Were the people who participated in the Boston Tea Party terrorists? When our own states wanted to split from our government, we went to war to stop them, but we cheered and helped when the states of the USSR did the same thing. Yeah, you say, but the reasons were different. But who are we to decide what's a better reason.
I've always believed that you cannot truly understand what you believe until you've questioned it and looked at it as if the belief is false. That is the only way you can be sure that what you believe, for you, must be true.
So, by that token, I ask these questions. And then I have to answer them as such. The world changes over time, and we refine what our criteria for supporting a movement is. But, it's always freedom. If people are trying to be more free, then we support them. If they are fighting to restrict freedom, we oppose them. And yes... what looks like freedom in one situation can look like repression in another, so sometimes we make the wrong choice. But we keep trying. And that, quite simply, is what we must do now. Keep trying... help people be free. Free from oppression, free from fear, free from danger, free to choose who leads them, free to choose what they believe, and free to let the person who believes differently from them have the same freedoms. So... keep trying.