Observations from self quarantine - day 60

The world is in chaos.

People are getting sick and dying from a disease that we have no cure. We understand that it spreads by hopping from person to person. Through a short hop in the air, from a cough or sneeze. Or from contact, a hug or a handshake.

So we're told to keep away from each other. Because the person standing next to you may have the disease. You can't tell by looking at them. It's invisible to the naked eye.

A lot has been said about how this disease came about. Blame is currently targeted at China. But it could have come from somewhere else. Who knows. It was found in China first. But then again, Livingstone discovered the source of the Nile, or did he? At this point, laying blame is quite useless. Perhaps later when we have some sort of medicine that works, we can go back and do some analysis. If only to see if we could have stopped it. To see if we learned anything from how it started. And to figure out if there are things we could do now to stop another plague from getting to us.

I suspect that if the lesson's learned exercise is done by the same scientists that worked on the lesson's learned from HIV, ebola, SARS or any other immune system attacking virus, we won't be getting any clear answers.

But someone, somewhere, is sitting in a room, head in hands, rubbing temples, and sighing, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of Worlds."

I'm writing this sitting in an Airbnb in Mississauga, Canada. I've been in self quarantine since I arrived from Nairobi on March 17th. I missed by flight back home to Kenya. It was cancelled. So now I wait for the airlines to tell me when I can fly to Kenya. And for the Kenyan government to let me know when it will be safe to return.

I'm not in isolation. My wife and daughter are with me, so this is quarantine, not isolation. Not sure if I can call this the fire. Or the frying pan. But I've confirmed a few things about myself that I'd like to share.

Quarantine isn't too hard. For me. Really, not hard at all.

I always knew that I was a semi-hermit. I do my best work all by myself. I was built for work from home. Super productive, to the point where the term workaholic seems like being lazy. What do you mean you only worked for eighteen hours?

But I understand that too many of us are getting cabin fever. And this is getting bad. Some news around the world is positive. Number of cases of drunk driving is down. Homicide rates are falling. Robberies and violent crime is down.

But on the other side, cases of rape and spousal abuse are up. Suicides are also up, as is domestic violence. Clearly these are people who need to get out of the house, sooner than later.

But it's not safe. We are still vulnerable. And people are dying.

Technology

Technology had already taken over many parts of our lives. Much like the dependency on electricity. And even though, as a technology nerd, the thought of using technology to do everything has its fascination. I didn't anticipate that I would see that in my lifetime. The Internet is now our portal to community. It's our portal to our family, friends, community and clients. If you were worried that you were spending too much time on Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram, this period of quarantine certainly won't help.

And things are about to become decidedly worse.

If you couldn't keep away from the Internet when you were at work, nine-to-five. Then thinking that you will suddenly acquire a new hobby in quarantine is not being honest with yourself. It's not part of your DNA. Those social media binges at work will now fill the entire day.

And given that the Internet is full of so much junk, you're now going to face a different kind of infection. And a new mental illness will result from all of this. Not entirely new, but the addiction will require heightened attention. This problem is much worse for those who work in the service industry, where you must interact with your customers. People still need to buy groceries. They just don't need to visit the shelves. You, the grocery store owner, need an Internet store so that you can continue selling to your customers. Those people that used to come through your doors, are now asking you to send an Uber with their stuff.

But the Internet may not be your only nemesis. Having to live with yourself, every day, all day may get to you. You'll find out just how insignificant, bored, boring, uninteresting, unfocused, lazy, selfish, self-interested, self-obsessed and scattered you are.

And I don't say that only to be mean. Many of us have our work (our jobs) as the focus of our lives. Going to work (that job) is a big part of it. The politics and culture of work (the job) take up a lot of room during the day. Lots of room.

Let's say that the work culture is responsible for 40%. And that's a conservative 40%. And that the environment contributed to about another 40% of your focus. This means that your ability to work was due to the fact that you were at work. At the job.

This means that your ability to self-regulate and work via willpower, was due to 20% of your own effort.

Let's repeat that. You can use 20% of your will, in an eight hour workday, to force yourself to work. The environment is responsible for the other 80%. And that environment is now your home.

And again, this is decidedly worse for those who work in the service industry. If your job was in an office cubicle, it may not matter much where that cubicle is located. However, if your job was stocking items on a shelf in a store, that work has now been taken over by the online store. Web designers and database programmers.

For the cubicle workers, it's going to be interesting how your work is valued. I suspect (since I've been there), that showing up was part of the value you provided at work. Now that you're not showing up, how is the quality and quantity of your work going to be valued?

I'll leave that last one up to you.

Extroverts

Extroverts are people who draw their energy when surrounded by other people. They need face-to-face interaction and work well when engaged directly with people. Not computers.

Zoom, GotoMeeting, Skype, WhatsApp video chat and other online video services will be their friend. But there's only so much of this that one can do. Sitting around a meeting room is not the same as sitting in your dining room staring at your computer.

That person on the screen doesn't interact with you the same way as if they were across the table. And so the extrovert will definitely have problems interrupting, and doing what they do best also - having side conversations at the meeting table.

I've worked with many of them. They're loud, boisterous, aggressive, what you'd call type-A personalities. It's not about seeing the person, on a screen. It's being in the room so that social energy from the surrounding people can be inhaled.

Clearly this is a generalization, since many of us have bits of both extroversion and introversion. But if you're on the 80%-plus scale of extroversion, watch out. You're about to get acquainted with yourself. And you just might not like hanging out with yourself so much.

I certainly didn't.

Introverts

Introverts are people who draw their energy from within themselves. I'm one of these. They need time alone to recharge after spending time in social events. Meetings, formal occasions (such as weddings or office functions), public gatherings take a lot of energy out of them. They then need time by themselves to recharge.

Copyright - Book Cover by Susan Cain

There probably was a time in the past when I was somewhat confrontational, maybe. As an architecture student, where each week I had to present drawings and project work in front of my classmates, I developed an argumentative, I'm right, style of speaking about my work.

And looking back, I think it took a lot of effort to do that. Some of my classmates, who I can call introverted, didn't resort to the same tactics, and they did well. And so now, in later life, I have accepted that I don't have to be the loudest person in the room, shout with the most volume, to put forward my ideas. Being introverted has its challenges as you try to climb up the corporate ladder. The higher you go, the louder it gets. But its not an insurmountable challenge. It's one that can be overcome with confidence and knowledge.

I like to do things quietly at my desk, or in front of my computer. Writing and draw. Lots of time. And I'm happiest when I'm in that design mode - with nobody around me. And the presentations themselves are short, and stressful. But they're short.

The New Reality

There's no doubt about it. The way we work and socialise will not go back to how it was before. I'm a bit sad that we were forced into it by a pandemic, but not sad that we're losing the old hassle and bustle life of commuting to offices, and wasting time arguing face-to-face.

Businesses will resume. I'm confident of this. The restaurants will re-open and so will the movie theatres, the parks, the bars and the malls. But we will have gone through this period where we will have evaluated the need to go out and spend time on these activities.

For some components of the service industry, there will be some competition with new ways of doing business, on the Internet. And quite likely, some businesses will make adjustments to figure out how they will move forward.

For those of us that worked in offices, this will be a bigger change. After a few months of working from home, a real need to evaluate whether or not all that rented office space is needed will be done. And some of us may be called to justify what it is exactly that we do in the office. It won't be all about just showing up.

Reflection

As we sit at home. Some out of work because our jobs simply cannot be done at home. And some stretching the hours, since we now have more available office time. We need to reflect on what we do and how we do it. For business owners, this is looking at this pandemic as an opportunity to review processes. For employees, this is also an opportunity to review how you are most effective.

It may be that you thought you were the most important person in the office. Now to realise that the office is running perfectly efficiently without you. Most managers (and above) will fit into this category.

Or it may be that you thought that your job couldn't be done without you. And now you find that the company has hired some Internet kid to process the orders that you used to glow about.

Perhaps you thought that there wasn't enough time in the day to complete all the tasks assigned to you. And now you're able to finish everything on time as well as take some time for yourself.

Maybe you realise that the thing that motivated you about your job was your corner office. You and your corner office, together, excelled. But your home office in your basement isn't moving you. And your dining table isn't helping. There's nobody to walk around and envy your corner office. Your work is completed in isolation and there's nobody for you to constantly bug and hi-five for approval.

One thing that I confirm about myself is that I truly love the quiet. And that the days are completely full. And that I'm not too conscious of Mondays or Fridays. And that it's in my DNA to look for results, and not the definition of work in physics, (work done = force x distance).

For myself, there's greater clarity in the silence and isolation. And the interface with colleagues through Internet meeting tools works great - for people like me. But I have some sympathy for those who need to sit around the table and talk. Some sympathy - not a alot.

Final thoughts

This is a serious health crisis. It's likely to get worse, even though, optically, it seems that governments are responding adequately.

We won't get out of this living the same way were were before.

Handshakes are a thing of the past. Are as hugs.

Your smartphone, tablet and computer have just become very essential resources.

Our economies will survive.

Individually, or personally, we will need to become more intelligent about work and life. Crime and fraud will escalate as more and more work is pushed online.

Take time to take stock. Make lifelong learning a part of your lifestyle, like exercise, or eating healthy. Keep your brain engaged and learn to be self sufficient within your own mind. Develop an introvert's mindset.

Be Like Water

Be like water, making its way through cracks.
Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object,
and you shall find a way round or through it.
If nothing within you stays rigid,
outward things will disclose themselves.

- Bruce Lee

That is one of many excellent quotes from Bruce Lee. The water metaphor is powerful applicable to so many of life's challenges.

As a philosophy on how to approach tasks, whether they are challenges or not, difficult or easy, it is unmatched. Antithetical to today's rushed approach to getting stuff done yesterday.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A building of a hundred storeys, starts with a single brick. These are water quotes. They embody being like water. Because water builds everything over time. Like grand canyons.

I've run many marathons. I've loved the training part. And the race-day part. I look forward to race day, but I'm always very anxious. People ask me how I'm able to run for such long distances, and enjoy it. The fact that it's enjoyable cannot be understood by those who don't run, but also many who do.

I suspect that for those of us that don't run competitively nonetheless use competition to keep motivated. The finish line isn't the goal. Interesting. The finish line isn't the goal. Rather it's the repetitive motion, that slow, relentless, footfall-after-footfall pace.

And if you don't enjoy that slow, repetitive motion. And what it does to you internally. Fill you with endorphins. Calm you. Energize you. And get you to that finish line. Then you should heed Bruce Lee's words and be like water.

Bruce Lee also said the following:

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water.
If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle.
You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now, water can flow or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.

- Bruce Lee

Someone on Quora said the following about this quote:

This saying is basically to remind you to just relax, go with the flow, be present and in the moment; let things happen and enjoy that you're there to take it all in.

I agree.

There's great power in thinking about the might of water, and being like water. It means that you should:

• Not push too hard.
• That gentle force makes huge differences.
• That long time combined with gentle force does more than short time and aggressive force.
• That malleability is a greater force than obstinacy.
• That if you continue to keep knocking gently eventually the door will open.
• That to be in the present moment you have to temporarily ignore the future.

These are all very difficult things.

The tendency, when faced with an obstacle is usually to grunt and press on. But if you were like water, you'd close your eyes, sigh and then press on.

It doesn't mean turning back. It definitely doesn't mean turning the other cheek. Bruce Lee didn't. But it does insist on continually applying water-like pressure. Which we all know is soft and malleable.

Insurmountable Odds

One reason why projects fail is that the goal looks so big. And so far away.

And well meaning project teams try to break things down into smaller steps. The idea is that the smaller, digestible steps form the perfect path to the finish line. But in my experience, what seems to happen, eventually, is that the target becomes the focal point of most discussions in project meetings.

Are we still on track? Can we make bigger steps? Can we insert more force to make sure that the target is not jeopardized. This isn't water-like thinking. That is brute-force thinking.

Here are a couple of examples.

Say you want to write a novel. You pick up your pen and then you stare at the blank sheet of paper for a while. In your head, you are thinking of this epic story, where this insanely clever prisoner manages to con his way out of prison, steal a car, make his way to his incarcerator's home, to begin the slow process of revenge. The revenge, of course, takes on many forms.

But there you are, you kinda know the finish. You kinda know parts of the middle. You kinda know some of the the characters. At least two of them. But you don't know what to write.

Being like water tells you that your first draft isn't the story. And that perhaps you should just write something, and start filling up the page. Doesn't matter if your story's not taking shape. But words are getting on the page. Like water slowly flowing, eventually it finds the places on the earth that have the least resistance and it slowly carves it's route. And the water eventually becomes a river.

The words fill the page and you, in absolute amazement, realise that the story isn't going the way you think it should. Your character is weak. He's incapable of this escape. You now begin to see his weaknesses, they seem so much like yours. You can't write. He can't escape. How can he hope to do something in the imaginary world, you think, that you couldn't possibly do in the real world.

And slowly, this dialogue in your head, one word at a time. One sentence at a time. One paragraph at a time takes shape. Some parts are good. Some will be lost. Like the water that wants to become the river. It doesn't know that it wants to be the river, only later, when it has forged a path does it become apparent that it's a river.

Say you want to build a house. You have some scattered ideas about the rooms you want. And some vague notion of the shape. So you pick up a pen and a blank piece of paper.

Final thoughts

Being like water isn't a call to complacency, or not being assertive. But it's having the confidence that the single brick that you're holding in your hand is the key to the magnificent structure that you will build. That the single word you've written on that page is absolutely miraculous.

Moments to be like water are everywhere. When you're in business, or at work. If you are at home having dinner. When you're washing the dishes, cleaning the house or taking out the garbage. Fully being in that moment when you are doing that task, and not thinking of when it will get done is the key. You have a sink full of dishes. You pick up the first one and concentrate on washing it, as though it was the only dish you had to wash. The other thirty, dirty dishes go out of focus. Focus on the one dish in your hand.

Be like water. Be in the moment.

I've been hacked

Isn't anything sacred?

My personal website at https://www.mathenge.ca is under siege. Hackers have broken into the server, and there's nothing that I can do about it.

The website is based on Drupal 7. And that's not the issue, per se. The problem is the underlying scripting language, PHP.

I've been hacked before. I've had viruses on my computer also. I've dealt with them swiftly. After all, I consider myself an I.T. guy. But this particular hack comes at a friggingly inconvenient time.

Its taken me a really long time to build up that website. I've had to learn how to use Drupal. Spent countless hours finding and configuring a theme. Frankly speaking, it would have probably been easier doing this the hard way - using notepad and hard code.

And then there's the content.

Oh lordy, all that content. Stuff that I'm passionate about. Some tutorials that I've written. Essays. Stories. And even some touchy-feely stuff.

They said that the cloud would be safe. If your laptop, or home computer, crashed, you'd have nothing to cry about. It would all be safe in the cloud.

That's what they said.

And I preached this constantly. Put your shit in The Cloud. Put all your shit in the Cloud. Leave nothing on your laptop, or desktop computer. Put it all away - in the Cloud. What on earth are you doing with all that storage on your laptop. Who in today's world needs a terabyte of data close at hand? When you can have a petabyte in The Cloud?

End of Rant

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I still think that the Cloud is great. This was all my fault. I thought I'd have the time to take care of the details of hosting my own website. Updating the software. Keeping the content current. And keeping the hackers at bay.

Update, update, update.

Apple and Microsoft realised this eons ago. And now Mac and Windows computer updates are automatic. Don't trust the end user to apply updates. Wait till they go to sleep, and then update their software. When they wake up in the morning, they'll thank you for it.

But I’m an I.T. guy, so I did what I.T. guys do. I bought my own hosting plan from GoDaddy, installed my own web software, configured it and built my website. From scratch. With my own two hands. And, in typical I.T. guy fashion, didn’t ask anyone for advise or help.

And the website was was working fine. I was able to add lots of content, when I had the time. And when I remembered, I would also update the website software. What I.T. guys call the backend. With security updates. I wasn’t constantly watching over the website like it was a baby. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I didn’t think that anyone in the world would be interested in taking a look at what I was doing. Why hack me? I have nothing that you want.

I was wrong.

And it was somewhere in that moment of not looking that I got hit. I cannot recall the exact date, but one day I tried to login to my website and it wasn’t there. Just a blank white page.

I don’t recall panicking. I don’t recall any feelings of frustration. I actually don’t recall anything other than bland curiosity. Hmm, a blank page. I wonder what that means?

And after some time, it occurred to me to check the backend.

Drupal is software for building websites. It’s made up of a bunch of files sitting in a folder (called the filesystem). And data, that’s stored in the database. I’ve never really bothered to inventory all the files, so I couldn’t tell if there was a problem. And if the issue wasn’t so glaring, I probably wouldn’t have found it.

I discovered that the main Drupal launch file, a file named index.php, had been tampered with. The details of the tampering are the content of a different post. However, suffice it to say that getting the files on the filesystem back to their original state was quite easy. All I had to do was download a squeaky clean copy of the latest version of Drupal. Delete all my Drupal files (except a couple of files with site settings). And then copy the new files to effectively replace the deleted ones.

And my baby was back.

But not for long.

Barely a few days later and the index.php file was corrupted again. And I went through the same motions to clean it. And it happened again. And I cleaned it again. And again. And again. And again.

Curiously, after some time, even with some corruption, the website continued humming along. I could still login, create new content, and save it successfully.

It wasn’t entirely my fault

I said this earlier, it wasn’t entirely my fault. It wasn’t. GoDaddy shares some blame in this too. Apparently, the hosting plan that I have was deprecated. GoDaddy was encouraging existing clients to upgrade to other hosting plans, and this specific hosting plan was not being sold to anyone.

But GoDaddy also wasn't forcing their clients off this old, buggy, full-of-security-holes platform. As long as you were an existing customer, paying your annual subscription, GoDaddy was happy to keep you on that old plan, and let you bear the consequences for that action.

Most importantly, GoDaddy stopped upgrading the version of PHP on this server. And I suspect the database software also. As of this writing, PHP is at version 7.2.30. And the version installed on my hosting plan is 5.3.13.

... beware, boring numbers coming up ...

So how many updates have I missed?

Drupal Version	Final Version	Missed Updates
5.3	29	16
5.4	45	46
5.5	38	39
5.6	40	41
7.0	16	17
7.1	33	34
7.2	30	31
7.3	17	18
7.4	5	6

The current version, as I write this is 7.4.5. And so I’ve missed a whopping 248 updates. From 8 May, 2012 when version 5.3.13 was released. That’s almost eight years ago. Close to three thousand days.

No wonder I got hacked.

But I found a solution - well, it seems to be working for now. My gratitude to the owner of https://www.evagabond.me/2018/05/clean-fixed-hacked-drupal-site.html.

It's been about 24 hours since I followed the advise on that website, and so far, so good.

And the next step is to move from the current hosting to a plan that can be updated. And get away from Drupal. Maybe join the dark side and use WordPress. Ugh.