A little late-night twittering happened to cast my eye on the news of a new post from Kathy Sierra, who once enthralled an entire generation of creatives with her mission of helping others be more awesome. The post is up on Hugh McLeod’s blog at Gaping Void: Pixie Dust & The Mountain of Mediocrity, and reminds me what’s important about making products. I’d lost sight of this simple premise: it’s totally about helping other people be more awesome. Not only is it sound psychology, it reminds me to put compassion and love for the work first.

My friend Sabina’s husband Blake is off building schools in southern Sudan, which is one of the most adventurous and generous things I can imagine anyone doing. I’ve been following his blogging, and his recent entry Worst Dressed Man in Sudan contains a revelation that I’m finding applicable to myself: he’s finding that he actually isn’t the adventuring type. On the surface, it looks like he’s living the adventure, but at the same time he makes the distinction between being adventurous and having an interesting life. That’s a fascinating distinction that I will have to reflect on further.