Happy Birthday... to me.

58 years ago, on a possibly warm day in Nyeri district (it wasn't a county back then), a few days before Kenya became a republic, I became. A little over a year before, Kenya had been granted self-rule by its colonial masters, Britain, after a bitter, lengthy, bloody struggle.

The 60's were the emancipation years for Africa and those lucky enough to be educated at the time were suddenly granted an opportunity for leadership.

But I digress...

There was a time when the official retirement age in Kenya was 55 years old. The life expectancy was about 49 years old in 1964 when I was born, so its likely that most workers did not live long enough to retire and get a pension. Things haven't progressed much. The current (2022) life expectancy is still under 70, close to 67 years old depending on which source you use, so the current retirement age of 65 isn't helping much.

But again, I digress...

I do feel older. I feel that I've done my share of work. I actually feel as though I should have retired by now. My thirties and forties were super busy. And as I reflect, I wonder what all the rushing was all about. At the time, in my various jobs, the entire planet revolved around what I did. Nothing anyone else was doing was of any importance. I've run close to 30 full marathons in my life, and I'm tired. 

But 58 feels good. While I couldn't sit still for five minutes without rushing here and there, I feel so good just sitting on a chair, in peace and quiet, meditating. My mind's still switching channels quickly, but I don't feel the urgency to run and get anything done so quickly. I'm more concerned with doing it right. 

I'm not religious in any sense, but I have a sense of wonder, a feeling of the numinous, of awe and wonder at nature. That mankind has been able to get out of the trees and manage to shape the environment to his (and her) will is mind boggling. People are super smart. And many of them are way smarter than I will ever become.

And that's OK.

My small little corner of the planet feels comfortable, and knowing that I will only enjoy it for a little while yet, makes it all that more comfortable. Everything is amazing. My computers. My pens. The paper that I write on. The books I'm surrounded by. The people I meet. The walks I take. The water I drink. The air I breathe. The exercise I do. I'm lucky.

I feel that I must do something personal, truly my own in the next couple of years before I hit super 60. And of course I'll get there. My hero, Ed Whitlock, ran a sub-3 hour marathon at age 73. Now, if I can do one last marathon, before age 65, and make it count, wouldn't that be something? And at the same time, finish that darned book I've been writing since I was about 40. That must be a record. Even if I get to 300 pages of semi-interesting material, that's over 7,000 days to write 300 pages, which is about 23 days to write a page. Which is less than 3 lines per day. Believe me, by the fifth year, I'd forgotten the start of the story.

And that's OK.

Because the many shorter stories still count. And my critics are most welcome, because I won't stop.

It's a little past midnight as I write this, it was supposed to be a simple reflection on this milestone. As I remember how lucky I am to be here, now. And to be thankful that I am fit and healthy. And today (since it's already the day), I will spend time thinking of this. That will be my gift to myself. To engage in silent and peaceful meditation. And to be thankful.

Cheers!

Mindfulness

I had lunch with a cousin that I had not seen in ages, literally decades. It was great catching up and throughout the lunch I slowly remembered her and how fun life had been when we were all younger. Time just slipped by and before we knew it, it was early evening and time to say goodbye.

As we said goodbye, my dad, who lives next door, happened to be passing by and stopped by just to chat. Now, normally, I only take visitor by appointment, but of course, parents and family would be different. They don't need appointments to come and visit you. But it was something he said that made me think of writing this. He remarked about how difficult it is, living in the city, for family and friends to see one another. He said that back in the old days, living in the village, we saw one another much more and took time to enjoy each other's company. And then he went on to say that this absence of contact is the reason why so many of our young people are depressed.

DEPRESSION

Back in the seventies and eighties, when I was growing up, we didn't know what ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) now known as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) was. I suspect that the disease wasn't even that prevalent, it's probably a sign of the times, but I'm sure it was there. Just like recognition that soldiers needed help after coming back from war, you just couldn't take them back home and expect them to get a job and go back to being normal, even this recognition that there was help needed came quite late.

We didn't know that kids, as young as 12 years old, could get a stroke. But now we recognize that ADHD is real, and I know some people who have it. And if not treated, could lead to fatal consequences. It's not a joke that the rates of suicides among young people has really gone up. Some of it simply a statistical adjustment. If you have a 10% rate of something in a population, and you have 100 people, then you expect that 10 of them will have this thing. However, if you have 8 billion people, like we have today, then that's 80 million with the thing. But a lot of what we're finding out about depression is not statistical. Some of it is a recognition that indeed this stuff was there before, we just didn't know about it. And the other is that the problem is exacerbating. It's getting worse.

Unlike self-help, depression is not one of those conditions where you can simply tell the person to stop being depressed. You cannot tell them to go and find something useful to do and get better. Drugs, prescription drugs, seem to help but I feel that's a slippery slope. The long term effects of these drugs are not too well understood, and perhaps in a couple of decades, we will be where we are now with the diagnosis, we'll say we didn't know.

MINDFULNESS

My mind is a racetrack, constantly buzzing around and around. But I'm also a worrier. The glass is always half empty. I spend a lot of time thinking of what is wrong, or what is going to go wrong, went wrong or potentially could go wrong. Constantly on that hedonic treadmill, looking for the next thing. But I discovered a way to stop time, breath and focus on the being still inside.

It's not easy. I have been practicing for years, and I can tell you that it's still difficult. My mind still asks me what on earth I'm doing this for, and why I bother. But I can assure you that the benefits are astounding. Simply amazing.

But mindfulness does not have to be practised in total silence, sitting in a quiet room with your legs crossed. It can be practised when you're walking, taking public transit to work, eating your breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. Mindfulness is simply being aware.

Mindfulness is being aware.

It's being aware of everything about you. How your fingers feel, how your toes feel, how your hair feels. Going into your thoughts and analyzing what you were just thinking about, and trying to figure out why those thoughts were there. Time slows down and you create a bubble where you sink deeply into yourself. To get to that state, I have found that I start by concentrating on my breath. Yes, it works well in a room all by yourself, sitting down where there is no interruption, or disruption, but it also works when you're not.

Breathing is natural, so you can feel the breath as it goes in and out of your body. Through the nostrils and into your lungs. Something you do so naturally everyday without thinking. Now take a moment and really concentrate on this. Each breath is unique and is your friend, and you concentrate on each volume of air going into you.

Naturally, you may become distracted. All of a sudden, that tax form you promised to fill out comes to mind and you remember that you did not fill it out and send it in. A phone call to a friend that has lapsed also come to mind and quite quickly you get bored with feeling and listening to your breath as other priorities take place.

But as soon as that happens, you take notice of it, you simply dismiss it and go back to your breath. Do this enough times and the interruptions will get fewer and fewer. If you're like me, they'll never truly go away, but they will decrease in quantity and intensity. And you'll notice them sooner and dismiss them quicker.

I used to get this feeling that I was wasting time, that I could be doing something more productive. Something useful. But what's useful? Working on that project. Finishing your taxes. Doing that shopping. Writing that proposal, presentation or important paper. There's always something more important. Even when you're doing that important work, there's something else waiting in the line.

So think of meditation as exercise. Or sleep. Put it up there as a priority as one of those things. Exercise, sleep, food and meditation.

PRACTISE

Is defined as performing, or exercising, an activity repeatedly or regularly in order to acquire, improve or maintain proficiency in it. It's by practise that the muscle memory develops, that the skill becomes innate.

Like anything important, regular is the keyword. Like exercise and diet. But unlike those two, don't be deceived by the thought that you need to find a sanitized room, with incense. You can meditate in the bus on your way to work. When walking quietly at lunch. Sitting alone for a while on a bench, even on a busy street.

As long as you move your thoughts inwards. Feel your breath. Feel your heartbeat. Feel, rather than think, your thoughts. Do a body scan, toes to head and back again. Get lost in how you feel. Really concentrate on your body, on the surface of your skin, your muscles. It will take time and the distractions will be there. Recognize them as such, as distractions, and then move on.

Practise, practise, practice.

Password Security

Bruce Schneier says that security is both a feeling and a reality.

He also said, if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the stuff that I have online, and what would happen if it got lost. Back in the old days, when you opened a bank account, they gave you a little banking book, and you had an account number, which, incidentally, everyone knew. But nobody could take your money out of your account since you had to physically go to the bank, with your bank book, and access your account.

And even when ATM's started getting popular, you had to show up at the ATM, with your ATM card, and key in your four-digit PIN, which only you (and possibly your spouse and kids), knew.

Now everything's online. Banks, emails, shopping, contracts, rental agreements, calendars, schedules, medical records, vehicle licenses, identification documents, social security data, divorce and separation agreements, court decisions and so on. Some of this stuff is personal and private and nobody other than yourself should have access to it. Other stuff is public and everyone's reading it.

IN THE BEGINNING

There were few accounts, and possibly one password. That password was used to get to your email and your social media account. It was the same password.

Incidentally, the same password used to login to your computer at work.

Then banks started doing all their transactions online, and you used your same email password for your bank account. This was before the time when the username was your email address. Back then, your username was a cryptic bank number.

And slowly as some government services (such as the tax departments, or driver's licenses) started to come online, someone told you not to use the same password. So you put 123 at the end of it, that was different enough.

What was the worst that could have happened? Well, someone could have broken into your email and read all your correspondence, illicit or otherwise. This could have been embarrassing and you may have lost a few friends in the process, but the financial risk (which is how we value the risk) would have been minimal in most cases. But the banking breach would have been different. The thief would have stolen all your hard earned money so that needed to be protected with much more care.

EIGHT CHARACTERS, UPPER, LOWER WITH NUMBERS

We have come a long way and we've been taught about password complexity. Our IT departments keep telling us that we need to have complex passwords that are hard to crack, but are memorable. And so, something like this, Pa$$w3rd5, is acceptable, and if we can imagine that the $ is an S, the 3 is an E and the 5 looks also like an S, we may be able to remember it as Passwords, with a few modifications.

But even that's not enough. There was a study sometime ago that revealed that an eight-digit password could be hacked in less than a day by a diligent hacker. So the length of the password is important. Of course, if you have a mix of different symbols, it gets harder to crack, but still eight digits is not enough.

So we were told to move up to eleven, and that is better. 

To make matters worse, websites began to demand complexity in the passwords you chose. Some institutions (namely the banks) started insisting that you change your password every thirty or so days. And once again, we were back to square one - take the same old password and append a number to the end of it. This month, it's Super.$3cret1, next month it's Super.$3cret2, then Super.$3cret3. And even if you forget it while you're online, you can just keep rotating the numbers till you get it right. Most people didn't even bother, they wrote it nicely on a post-it note and stuck it behind the monitor. Some of the more conscientious of us put that piece of paper in our wallets. Like that would help.

PASSPHRASES

And them someone figured out that the real issue, in getting good complexity, was actually the length of the password. The longer the password, then the harder, much, much harder it was for it to be cracked. So now we had passphrases like: iamthegodofmykingdom. And if you add spaces, way easier to type.

Still we were plagued with the fact that nearly every service we need is online. Even if we don't care about the content of our social media, we care that we don't want someone else masquerading as us. And so we would need different passphrases for each of the hundred accounts we have online. It's super important now to do this because we don't know how the websites are storing our passwords.

In many cases, much less as time goes on, when you click on the "forgot password" link on a website, they will send you a link to your email account to a spot where you can reset your password. That was not always the case. In the past, they'd actually email you your password. Many sites still do this today. So if you've been using your banking password on those sites, perhaps it's time to head over there and change it.

MULTIFACTOR

And we're on the next phase of passwords, or no passwords. This is the first real attempt at becoming serious about security. Not allowing people to think of their own ways to access their accounts, but insisting that they continually prove that they are who they say they are.

That's what 2FA (two-factor authentication) is really trying to address. We think we know who you are, but can you please send me back a code I just sent to the phone number I know is yours and I also know you wouldn't even give your phone to your spouse. It's not that I don't believe you wouldn't give your password to your kids so that they can transfer their own pocket money from your bank, but we don't trust that your kids won't give it out (accidentally) to someone else. And that could get you into trouble.

All we're trying to do is protect you from yourself. So, again, tell me what that code is that I sent to your phone, and, oh, by the way, I also need another code that I've emailed to you.

Some websites have done away completely with the password. As long as you validate yourself with either your phone or your email address, they're willing to send you a code to one of these as a better alternative to having a password. In a way, it's better. It's stronger since someone would need to have access to your email in order to hack your accounts.

So you'd better make sure your email password is really tough. And that the unlock PIN on your phone is also good.

BIOMETRIC

The granddaddy of all super secure methods - if our security providers can get this working correctly. Apple seems to be doing a good job. Not only don't we trust that we can send you a code (because we all k now that Apple product owners are touch-feely types who will lend their kids and friends their Apple gadgets), but we need to see you, or touch you.

And that's where face recognition and touch ID's come in. I think the last frontier in identity management. As long as we cannot fool the cameras, or the fingerprint sensors, we have a shot at making something that can really work. In Kenya, where I live, this may be a tough sell since the government has copies, upon copies, of its citizen's fingerprints and retina scans. And I suspect they keep this stuff in a thumb drive, on a keyring that the employees regularly pass among each other and dump the data to personal folders on OneDrive.

And so we're back to Bruce Schneier who I think is a genius in his field. When asked by a reporter how to prevent a disaster like 9/11, replied that it was simple. Ground all the aircraft. Clearly it was not an option, but as long as we have people, we'll need a careful balance between being secure and having access.

SUMMARY

I remember, in my days as a manager for a technical team, and the various discussions around users and accounts. It wasn't only about accessing accounts, but also securing services. And that's where the problems lie. Because, honestly, security is a process, and a system. There's no such thing as a secure system, only one that hasn't yet been breached. And a continual evaluation, and re-evaluation, of services is the only way to mitigate, check and respond to threats.

Oh, and by the way, if you are a systems administrator for any service you provide, either to internal clients or whomever, please, I beg you, stop this nonsense of forcing password resets. If you know people, you'll know that you just made things worse.

Celebrating Personal Achievements

Herd mentality comes from social engineering, which comes from thousands of years of conditioning and evolution, which is a consequence of our need to survive. But it goes against the attributes in our DNA, that stuff we're told predetermines, actually hard codes, who we are. Just like you cannot change your height, or your skin colour, or how your face looks your DNA is responsible for not only physical attributes, but also abilities and, they say, emotions and thoughts.

The Desiderata says, If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. The lesson here is that abilities are individual. I think that these instruction in The Desiderata are subtly powerful. Achievement is getting something done successfully. It could also mean recognition for the thing done. But there's a hint of comparison, which is to achieve compared to what?

And here's where we listen closely to The Desiderata. Because the normal thing is to compare yourself with others, and say, I have achieved based on my comparison to this person's achievement. Or that person's achievement. Even when the thing you are trying to accomplish bears no resemblance in terms of comparison to the person who you are comparing your achievement with.

Here's a simple example.

Pay and salary. This is one ruler, standard, used to measure achievement. If I make a certain amount of money, then I have achieved, succeeded. If I don't then I have inevitably failed.

Another one might be the acquisition of stuff. The more stuff you have, the more you can say that you have achieved. In Kenya we can say, I have arrived!

This sense that we need to continue to accumulate and gain and gather and move forward and compete and slash and burn all opposition may be partly genetic. Our brains tell us that we need to forage for food so that we can survive. And that having more food than the other person makes us stronger than the other person so that we can survive longer than they can, if a contest for survival were to happen. Also having more food, keeping it and not sharing it, means that should a famine happen, then we are likely to survive longer. Better still, if the other person has food, then taking that food away from them means more food for us, which is also better for survival. So taking stuff away from others is also part of personal achievement. If you see something that someone else has, then you want it. And in today's world, this is not limited to food, it's clothing, cars, jewelry, wealth and their spouse.

ENOUGH

In order to be emotionally happy, we must then acquire a notion of having enough. That notion of enough must be a personal one that dares only look inside, and not compare with others. It may look something like this:

• Today I wrote an essay, a couple of pages long, it may not make it to the New York Times bestseller list, but I'm happy with it.
• Today I did a 30 minute walking exercise, I feel great.
• Today I sat quietly for 30 minutes, uninterrupted, without a problem and I'm glad to have time to sit and think this way, it is a gift.

HALF FULL

But that's not the case most of the time. We're most likely to see the half empty part of the glass, not the half full, because it's the half empty part that's most likely to get us killed.

Going back to the prehistory you, who needed to be right 100% of the time in order not to die. That one time you mistake a sabre toothed tiger for a rock is the last time you do that. It does not matter the hundred times you were right. It takes just one.

And that's why negative thoughts are that much more powerful than positive ones. Negative thoughts make you grow more than positive ones. They say that's the same with exercise. Your muscles grow when you over stress them. You need to get to that point of pain in order for the exercise to work. And it's not comfortable.

It is nearly impossible to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones, since the negative ones are triggered externally. Mostly triggered externally and that (I believe) is why most meditation practices focus on going inside. Focusing on something simple, like the breath, and trying to cut out external thoughts. But the babble is overwhelming and cannot be shut off, and so when it happens, and you recognize that it has happened, then you can recenter an refocus yourself.

The half full babble sounds something like this:

• Oh crap, I still haven't done my taxes, I'm so lazy.
• This project is boring, it's taking so long why did I even start it.
• I hate my boss, I wish I could find a better job.
• I don't have enough money, I have to get another job so my kids don't suffer.
• I know something's wrong, just can't put my finger on it, but I feel it.

And on and on and on it goes. Never stopping. Never ending.

PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Are just that. They are yours and they are very difficult to share. And even when they can be shared you may notice that they mean very little to the people that you are sharing them with. You may think they're great, absolutely awesome and fabulous, but your audience may think otherwise. That may lead to a letdown.

But letdown's shouldn't stop you from sharing, and even if you don't get the response that you are looking for, at least you can bask in the achievement all by yourself. 

I'm a lifelong learner. I read voraciously, and I spend my time writing code. Not that I am selling software, there are much brighter and smarter people who can do better work, but I write code to understand and learn more. I ask myself, how does two-factor, or multi-factor authentication work? And then I write Python/Flask programs to see it in action. And I'm pleased with the work. And I revel in it. And I bask. And nobody knows.

But I do rush out to my Python blog and write about it, and that makes me happy. And recently, I've taken to YouTube to do more preaching. The viewers are low, the subscribers tiny, but it's more about the journey it took to prepare the product. It's like Les Brown once said, if you really want to speak and be a public speaker, but nobody will hire you or listen to you, then speak to your plants. If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? Ridiculous, but it symbolizes the ineffectiveness of unheard of opinions or thoughts. I don't like the term ineffective, because surely, there's an effect somewhere. It's almost like when in a debate, your opposition says something like, "well, I've never heard that." As though that was a point for it's non-existence.

I don't think people celebrate quietly enough. Alone. Personally. Introspectively. And smile inside. And congratulate self. And be self aware and self proud.

Of that, there should be much, much more of.

Broken

My hands were full, the door to the kitchen was closed, a door with one of those handles you turn, not a knob. You can use an elbow and lean down on it to open the door. I was carrying a mug and a small dish in one hand, the other hand had a water bottle with another cup held by my little finger. Tucked under my arm, my upper arm close to my armpit, was another water bottle. Hey, I like water.

What I should have done is walk a few steps to the dining table, put the stuff down, walk back open the door, and then safely move the items in a couple of trips into the kitchen. But I'd successfully done this move many times with even more stuff tucked under my other arm. I yanked the handle down, pushed the door with the arm holding the mug and small dish. The small dish happened to get dislodged from my arm as the handle snapped back up when the door swung open.

It fell. The kitchen floor is ceramic, the dish was ceramic. Ceramic on ceramic not a good combination. The height was probably about three feet and it landed nicely on it's edge. It didn't have a chance. Shattering into small pieces and scattering a mile wide. Into the kitchen and also back into the dining room from whence I came.

I don't know why but I was immediately embarrassed. I felt judged for being a klutz by my inner imaginary conscience. That guy who sits on your right shoulder and tells you to slow down when you're speeding. To calm down and breath when you want to lash out. Then immediately came the sadness, the pain of loss. Of having a lost a really good friend because you killed them.

I'd had that small dish for almost twenty years. I remember when it was given to me as a housewarming gift. We'd been together for a really long time and it had served me with sandwiches, fruit, cake and snacks. Faithfully doing it's job and asking for nothing in return. And there, because I was so busy, I dropped it and it was now no more.

BROKEN

When things break, physically, or emotionally, the feeling is a sinking hollowness in the chest, at least for me. Some peopled possibly feel it in the stomach. It's a pressure-like feeling. Like something is pressing you down. And your head has this emptiness. You may even cry and though tears may not come out, there's a wetness around the eyes for the loss. You're never elated because you can always toss out things that you didn't like. But when you break something accidentally, you feel sad.

It similar to when someone close to you lies to you, or even worse, rips you off. A sense of lack of trust feels breaks you and you feel pressure and emptiness at the same time.

THE FIX

And so you tell yourself that next time you will only hold one or two things and do things carefully. You won't speed so that the cops don't stop you. You will not be so trusting so that you aren't hurt. You'll move in slow motion, like you're moving in thick oil, and be very careful as to not make any more mistakes in life. And this may work for a few hours, but you soon forget. That's the one good thing with our animal brain. Like good feelings also fade away, bad feelings also in time just disappear.

The Stoics know this and having a stoic frame of mind is an excellent way to live. Knowing and anticipating that breakage is a part of life and so when it comes, while the sinking feeling may still be there, at least now you can curiously observe the breakage with curiosity, and ask yourself, "so where have you been my friend?" "It's been a week since we last met, how've you been?" "Why did you choose to let me back into that raised curb and damage the car bumper?" "Now you've really cost me money that I was intending to spend on pleasure." "Oh well, till next time, just do something simpler." "And hey, leave my phone and computer alone."

That conversation trivializes the event, makes it look commonplace and even though unexpected, inevitable.

IT'S IN THE MIND

As with everything you've read, mental breakage is in the mind. While the loss is physical, your brain works against you to punish you for what you just did. It goes as far as telling you that you're a bad person, careless, not thoughtful, inconsiderate and stupid. You should have known, it says. It doesn't matter if what you broke was yours. If it was someone else's stuff, then you brain will really punish you. But when someone else breaks your stuff, you may even get angry. Angry at them for not being careful or considerate for your stuff. Thinking about this may make you a little bit more considerate towards people who break things. Because I'm sure you've broken and disappointed other people, not more than once. Perhaps you didn't know it, but trust me, you have.

Your brain is there to observe, file and categorize. I don't know who gave it the job of also making critical judgement and it appears that the critical judgement is aimed at reviewing what happened, so that it does not happen again. The trick is that you're only supposed to make mistakes once in life. Once you've made the mistake, you should not repeat it. You should have learned your lesson. 

But you keep breaking stuff, and the feeling of being careless and stupid comes back. Repeatedly, even stronger with each repetition. You can't help feeling bad when someone you know dies. It's natural for that feeling to come and with time it too dissipates. It goes away. That one does take a longer time irrespective of the circumstances. Natural death easier to take than accidental.

THE THING TO REMEMBER

Is that the broken events make up about 2 percent (made up statistic) of your total experience. The other 98 percent is OK, or even delightful. And when the 2 percent happens, we dwell on it as though it was 100 percent. And when it fades into the distance, we don't realize that we've been living in the 98 percent for much longer than the 2 percent. The 2 percent is like a visit from a parent, stressful, but it passes.

Dwell and live in the 98 percent, enjoying every moment of it. Knowing that the 2 percent is just around the corner. And so when it shows up, you can ask it, "hey, my friend, long time no see." "Glad to have you back, can I get you something to drink and we catch up?" "Remember last week, I spilled juice on the couch, ouch! that was two days of cleaning, and that couch will never be the same." "What was that?" "Oh no, I still drink juice on the couch." "Ok then, till next time, see you later."

And that's that.

Pushing past pain

The Wall in the marathon is that place where your body breaks down, your legs turn to jelly and your body shuts down. Some people will stop, hoping to regain some energy and continue, while others push right through the wall, slowly agonizingly, and in many cases break through.

Learning happens at that edge along the Wall.

In fitness training, your muscles grow and respond to the training when they are stressed and in discomfort. They are uncomfortable. So the best training is to reach that point of discomfort continually with each exercise regimen. And what you'll find is that the point of discomfort begins to move away from you. It will begin to take longer to get uncomfortable.

I've run many marathons and I've hit the wall in some of them. I clearly hit the wall in the very first one I ran though I didn't know what was happening at that time, and I learned to deal with the experience. It would take a lot more to hit the wall after that.

But I have learned that anything worth experiencing has its own Wall. But not all the time. However, its when you're on that edge of the Wall that determines real growth.

It's easy to perform when you're feeling your greatest. It's much more difficult to move forward when you feel tired, agitated, depressed, grumpy and confused. That's the real-life Wall. During those times, if you can actually move forward, then real learning happens.

There are many times I don't feel like working. And I sit and stare at my computer screen and sometimes convince myself that I should watch YouTube for a few minutes, till I feel better.

Or wait till the Muse appears before I type a single sentence. After all, writing when uninspired will probably lead to uninspiring work. That's what I tell myself, and it's very convincing. A couple of hours later, I'm glued to YouTube watching series after series of Air Crash Disaster, wondering where the time went.

GETTING STARTED

In many cases, getting started may be difficult. There are too many things waiting to be done, and all of them are calling for attention. They all seem equally important, and all of them want you to pay attention to them. So you sit and pay attention to none of them.

But if you got started on one of them, you'd feel better about getting on the road. At least I do. Just picking at something boring you right out of your skull, and working slowly, but persistently, watching and feeling and thinking to yourself that you'd rather be somewhere else, but still persisting.

Writing but still waiting for the Muse to appear.

Taking that exercise walk, but wishing you were somewhere else.

Documenting that code in that software application you've been writing, waiting for inspiration to come, but still doing something useful.

Collecting your tax papers together, and starting to fill them in, while wondering and being confused as to whether you have everything you need, or if something is missing - but moving ahead anyway.

MOTIVATION

George Carlin once joked about motivation, motivational books I think. If you were motivated enough to get out of bed and get to the store and buy the book then you're already motivated, so leave the book alone and go about your business. Or something like that.

I don't know what motivation is, but routine trumps motivation. A routine is like working in an assembly line. You don't have to be motivated since the work is repetitive and routine and involved very little of your creative, defensive self. Writing a book could be considered assembly line work. So could being a great chef, or a mechanic. Or any task for that matter. Even in science, poking into the depths of the unknown, stumbling in the dark, looking for that which you know not what it is can be trying. So you make it routine and follow it.

Sooner or later, you break through the Wall.

And you don't realize that you are actually being productive. And inspiration has nothing to do with it. Confucius said, It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. And Samuel Jackson is quoted to have said, Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.

THE TRICK IS TO KEEP GOING

The trick is to keep on moving even when everything inside you is telling you to stop. This is incredibly difficult to do when you can look around you and think of a million other things that your attention can be drawn to. In the marathon, simply the reprieve you get from stopping and breathing calmly gnaws at you and many people do actually stop, and many cannot get the engines going again.

But when you're working on a project and you reach the wall, and you look outside and see the blue sky, or you think of a cheeseburger, or a stake, or sitting on your couch doing nothing, it's difficult not to resist all these activities, better than what you're doing right now, all competing for your attention.

The trick is really, very simply, to keep moving on, slowly, trudging. So, not by strength, but by perseverance.

As I sit here writing this, my motorcycle is in the garage calling me. Telling me that in an hour or two, it will be raining, or dark, or rush hour traffic will be on the roads, so this is the best time to go outside and have a ride. This writing can wait till later, but the writing cannot.

So I'm slogging through it, since I have a point to make, and the point is being made while it's actually happening. 4pm on a Monday after a tough day after the weekend, and this topic seemed to be calling me to write it. Asking me to do what I say should be done, instead of going out for a bike ride.

PUSHING PAST THE WALL

While you are inside the wall, the conflict between what needs to be done and what you want to do are constantly at battle. In many cases, the want wins, and the need suffers.

Complexity

 A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
                                       - Lao Tzu

 

That obsessively quoted phrase from one of history's most insightful teachers says it all. A single step becomes two steps then three and then steps, which then turn into a mile and two miles and three miles, which then turn into a hundred miles and so on.

I wonder what Michelangelo was thinking on facing a blank canvas, or a block of marble. Where to place that first chisel, or brushstroke. Or what Stephen King was thinking as he sat down to write the very first word. How on earth do we get to three hundred pages?

TIME

Time is an ingredient in any, and every, thing we do. While thinking is OK, doing is better. Leonardo Da Vinci is quoted as having said, I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. Often, however, the challenge of the blank page and the overwhelming complexity causes inaction. 

And part of this is because we are unable to see clearly the finished product, the end. Even if we write it down, it's still foggy until we start working on it. And then we run into trouble very quickly. Not because we did not plan, but inevitably because we cannot plan every detail.

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS

Sometimes it's easier to not do anything than start because of the overwhelming complexity staring at us. Some of the fear due to lack of knowledge, the fear that I will fail, or I will break it, or I won't get to the finish line - even if I don't know where this finish line is.

Analysis paralysis is like the deer caught in the headlights. It knows it must move, but it's blinded with fear. And sometimes it's lucky, many times not.

THREE STEPS FORWARDS, TWO STEPS BACK

Most things proceed this way. You start something, and realize that it's going in the wrong direction, so you backtrack. And you then move tentatively forward again. And by moving forwards and backwards, you soon get a sense of accomplishment. It's a good feeling that you're still not standing at the start. You've taken ten steps, but you've only moved two steps forward. But this is certainly better than being stuck at the start, thinking of the way to get to the tenth step, by taking only ten steps. At this rate, we will need to take thirty steps, just to get to ten!

FIRST PRINCIPLES

I remember my math teacher teaching us to start solving problems from first principles. We understand the problem, we need to come up with a method to solve the problem, but we keep going back to the solution. Forget the solution, think of the roadmap. The tried and tested methodology that mathematicians use to take huge problems and using a few tools build complex worlds. It's true that you can build a two storey cabin with just a saw, hammer and nails. Not even electric ones. And in that case, it might help to have a plan so that you don't have to pull down entire walls because you forgot that you needed thicker ones to support the second floor.

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
                        -- Isaac Newton

As a species we've come a long way. And we did this step by step, building on the successes of the past, and also learning from its mistakes.

BUILDING

It's not enough to look at the brick in one's hands and not do anything with it. You must lay it down and look for another brick to place on it. And continue to do this to build up the wall. Even the toughest rocks cannot stand the constant weathering of the elements. It's agreed that the Grand Canyon was partially as a result of the flow of the Colorado river cutting through the rock over 35 million years. That's a really long project.

The pyramids in Egypt are truly majestic works of construction. They took about 20,000 laborers about 20 years to build one. In this case, the complexity was one of getting the huge slabs of rock up to build each layer. I tend to think that as each ruler built their pyramid, probably starting with pyramids that were very small, they learned to become bigger and grander. Each successive ruler standing on the shoulder of the one that came before.

MANAGING COMPLEXITY

Taking small steps, and creating building blocks that can be managed in the mind. It's far easier to think of a single item, like a brick, than a complex structure like a hospital, or an airport. So too, writing a sentence is manageable, but thinking of the novel may be daunting.

Everything takes time. And while thinking time is important, it's not as important as doing time. It's the doing time that makes the structure, the book, the speech, the software, the dress, the food. And while the thinking time may make the product somewhat better, there's a fine line between planning and procrastination. Incidentally they look uncannily similar when viewed from the outside.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply - said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Nike's Just Do It slogan is a densely philosophical statement packed with a lot of wisdom. It defines the line where you stop thinking and simply Go For It. With fear and trepidation that you may have to turn back, but more likely that you'll end up somewhere else where you can move even further forward.

Complexity is managed by focusing on the immediate thing that you can wrap your mind around, with the confidence that the rest will take care of itself. The confidence that it will all work out in the end, and the brick will disappear in the grandeur of the building.

Organized Chaos

I was listening to a podcast by Seth Godin on Spotify, a series he named Akimbo, which I find very interesting. In one of the series, he talks about writer's block. He says there's no such thing.

I listened to that one twice.

And then in another one, titled Hitsville, he talks about people who have made a hit (whether it's in the arts, or business or anything) and that the hit was a surprise. That after the fact, you can look back with analysis and claim that you _knew_ or _understood_ the process, but you really didn't.

And the proof that you really didn't is in it's un-repeatability. You can't automatically do it again.

Preparation and Research

It begs the question of why not just jump into it and do it, without direction or hesitation. Organized chaos. Thinking and planning get in the way. Analysis paralysis. And at the end of the day, all that thinking may marginally improve the outcome, or even more likely, deaden it. Dull it. Make it uninteresting and boring.

Procrastination

Was invented by someone who felt guilty sitting doing absolutely nothing and then looking back and seeing that time had just passed by. This is why people look at old photographs and remember a time when they were really productive, doing so much stuff in eight hours. Now barely remembering a few months ago. The past few years have gone by really fast and I feel time moving even faster, like being caught in an undertow, or the centrifugal force of being sucked down a drain, though this one is in a huge ocean. You cannot get out, but you need to keep moving. If you need to remember what happened yesterday, you should look at photographs, which means you need to take very many photos, or you won't remember a thing.

I heard it stated very well in Lee Child's first Jack Reacher book, Killing Field. That memory is like a bucket which when you are old it's filled up. So that you will remember everything in the bucket, stuff that happened years ago, but you cannot put anything new into the bucket.

The Myth of Planning

And so planning is a myth. It was Sam Harris who gave a really good talk on Free Will. Or rather the fact that free will does not exist. You cannot think of something before you think it, so where does it come from? If you cannot think of something, before you think it, then where is the free will to think of what you need to think of?

Things just appear in your mind, and so your only option is to observe them and then allow your mind to think of them - and you don't know what you will decide or how you will think since you cannot pre-think anything. It's quite complex, but it made a lot of sense to me. An aha moment. And it answers the question about planning, that it's impossible to really plan ahead. You just have to sit down and allow the activity to take place. You cannot predetermine the outcome.

You cannot predetermine the outcome.

Hence the notion of organized chaos. You can tell yourself that today I will sit and finish these tasks that I have put aside and not done. That's the plan. And then write down in your diary, scheduled time slots in the day when these activities will take place. And then attempt to sit and do them. And perhaps they are well defined, so you know the outcome. An brilliantly written letter. A grocery list completed. An interview with a candidate for a position in your company all done. The lawn mowed and raked. And this blog post all done. The list can be worked through, but it's the process that cannot be determined. I did not think that these words would be the words that I would be thinking and writing, and it's only now as I write them that I see that they make sense. I did not order the writing, it happened and as I worked through it, I wondered if I would get to the conclusion of the organized chaos that I was thinking of writing about. It was an idea, but there was little to determine the content.

In conclusion

Planning is necessary to list the things that you need to do. However, over planning can lead to paralysis, and you just have to dive in. When I started this blog years ago, the idea was to write something interesting, and in trying to write interesting work, the necessity of writing boring work was unacceptable. But it's part of the process of getting something interesting done. The boring pieces must happen. And waiting for the muse to show up, with their intelligent suggestions may mean that you never get that plane off the ground, fearing failure.

Just take off already.

Software Development as Meditation

Meditation

There is a sense of peace, relaxation when you are at a meditation retreat, you close your eyes, listen to the breath and feel the flow of air through your nostrils.

You concentrate.

Interruptions are not welcome, but your mind, being what it is, will naturally take you places. It's like the 2-year old with a five-second attention span. And so you are taught to gently bring your attention back to the breath when you discover this mind wandering.

I'm told that even seasoned meditators (if that's a word) of decades of experience will feel this mind wandering, it cannot be helped. But it can be managed. It may be simply thinking of bills, projects, taxes, relationships, weight, upcoming trips, food, discomfort, pain, parents, spouse or children. This stuff just bubbles up and you think of it.

Writing Down the Bones

Then Natalie Goldberg came along and said that you can use writing as a form of Zen practice. Exploring the mind through writing. I enjoyed one of her books, Writing Down the Bones. I enjoyed it enough to buy  my own hard copy - since I normally get all my books nowadays either from the public library, or ebooks from Kobo.

I love writing, and Natalie taught me to put the pen on the page and simply go, without stopping for a page or two, not thinking but allowing the pen to move and the words to come out. For me, this was a step up from the breathing and I rarely found my mind wandering. However, a couple of pages was my limit since my hand would get tired. And typing is not the same thing.

Morning Pages

And then I read Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. No doubt these two are friends, and the influence they have on each other is recognizable. In Julia's book, the free-form, flowing, writing is called Morning Pages. You're supposed to do them in the morning, first thing, before you get busy with other things.

I actually practised Morning Pages for close to a year, and then almost as suddenly, I skipped a session, then one became two sessions, then a whole week went by without a single Morning Page written, and at this writing, in September, the last time I wrote a Morning Page was probably in July. Morning Pages were an interesting exercise and it's hard to say if I got anything out of it. One thing it did was detract from my real writing because after Morning Pages, I was too mentally tired to sit and actually write anything. In looking back at that exercise, two full pages, long-hand, each morning, I could have completed a novel. If only I had that discipline for real work.

Software Development

I'm intrigued by puzzles. I enjoy working on those cast iron chain link puzzles where the solution is removing an item, or untangling the links, from the complicated mess. Some of the puzzles, mostly gifts, I have been working on for many years, and still no solution. Clearly I don't work on them daily, or for hours at a time, but suffice it to say that I keep them close and when I feel drained, they are curiously satisfying, even in their incomplete state.

I think that's why I found Architecture enjoyable. Drawing complicated shapes in 3D was a skill I developed and I could literally spend hours working on a single item. Days even. So when my career gravitated to writing software for a living, this was not work to me. This was being paid to have fun. This was something that I could do, even if I wasn't being paid.

Software development in its purest form is problem solving. Once you're past fighting with the tools and can concentrate on the problem, then the fun begins. It can be a challenge if you're still learning how to use the tools while trying to solve a problem. It's something like trying to design a bridge but not knowing anything about structural forces and the mechanics of materials.

Project Euler

There's this great website, Project Euler, which presents mathematical problems to solve, most which need some computer tools to complete. Some are easy, and others not so. The challenge is to look at the problem, understand it, and then take a crack at it.

Here's number 1 on the list of problems, possibly the easiest one and can almost, with enough time on one's hands, be done by hand.

Copyright Project Euler (https://projecteuler.net/)

Meditation

Why meditate? I think that there's some misinterpretation in a lot of literature that paints meditation as a singular activity that requires some notion of clearing of the mind. Wikipedia describes the activity as requiring focus to train the mind to achieve an emotionally calm and stable state. Many practitioners describe a fuzzy practice which needs stillness, while there are few who indeed say that mindfulness (a practice) can be achieved even when walking.

I believe the closest way to describe what the purpose of meditation is, is as an escape. Some practice that allows you to remove yourself from the stressful continuity of daily life. In a way, sitting quietly and concentrating on the breath can help achieve this. But so too can sitting and writing some computer code. Even if it's your daily job. As long as it's not focussed on the result, but on seeing the puzzle move ahead.

Coloring books

As an Architecture student I had a lot of sketch books where I could scribble down ideas - after all, the language of Architecture is drawing. Later in life, I found that I could zone out by colouring and so I have colouring books. The difference between the sketch books and the colouring books is that one is unguided, and the other one is guided. When you're colouring, you can focus on layering colour between the lines, the shape is already there. And if you concentrate hard enough on the process, and feel the colour pencil, and look at the layers of colour bringing the image to life - the still black outlines become fleshed out with colour - then you can use colouring as a form of meditation as well.

So here's the solution, in the Python programming language of the problem above.

sum = 0

for number in range(1, 1000):

    if (number % 3 == 0) or (number % 5 ==  0):

        sum += number

print(f'The answer is {sum}')

That's the brute force method of getting the answer.

There's even an Excel way to do this, here's one solution.

In that solution, all the numbers from 1 to 1000 are in column A. Then we use an IF() statement in Excel in column B to see if that number is divisible by 3. And we use an IF() statement in column C to check if that number is divisible by 5. Finally, if there is a "Y" in either column B or C, we put that number in column D. The answer is to sum all the way down to row 1000.

Practice what you Preach

Life is complicated enough without the addition of drama. You cannot deceive yourself, what on earth makes you think you can deceive others? Possibly because you constantly think that you're smarter than the pack. You know more.

This past week we had the drama of petitions in the Supreme Court of Kenya where the losing candidate petitioned for a review, really an overturn, of the election results announced. The court held that the elections had been fair and that the results would stand.

During this entire process, I was intrigued to listen to the various arguments, mostly around vote mischief, and I wondered if the lawyers presenting the arguments were really confident, technically, in their arguments. This is the one feature about lawyers that is intriguing to me, and also most frustrating, is that you require a certain amount of expertise to discuss the stuff that was being discussed, and I was not convinced of the technical expertise I saw.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW, BE SILENT

Take for example the allegation that documents were tampered with. It was alleged that the winner took votes from the loser, and the way that this proof was presented was by illustrating how some of the calculations at the polling station were doctored while on transit, or when actually submitted, to the collections centre. A lot of pdf images were shared with the lawyers zooming in on various sections of the document to show alterations. In addition to that, some system logs were shared showing access to systems by developers, foreigners (the system vendor) as well as elections management - who shouldn't have had access to some parts of the system.

I would have come to the same conclusion as the Supreme Court judges. But I would have challenged the petitions on a technical level.

While not saying that what was presented by the petitioner's lawyers was suspicious, or could not have happened, the supreme court judges simply said that what was presented was not enough to convince them. Which is the second part of my intrigue. I doubt that any of the supreme court judges are technology experts and would have known to ask the various technology questions to satisfy themselves that the technology platform was secure. In fact, in one submission, the vendor refused to supply some details of the system architecture (which I find strange) but offered superficial logging - without explaining how the logging was done. I could be wrong, but in rejecting the petitions, the judges didn't give me enough good reason as to why they were rejected.

I believe that it is partly due to the incompetent submissions by the petitioner's lawyers why the fraud, that may or may not have happened, was not highlighted sufficiently as a technology problem. That the technology failed was not explained as it should have been, to a technical panel. Instead, some very tedious technical detail was superficially highlighted and, at least it seemed to me, dumbed-down to the level that a child could understand. And as an I.T. professional myself, I could have said, woulda-coulda-shoulda.

Lastly, in explaining away the petitions, there were a lot of statements like "we were not convinced," or that there was lack of "sufficient evidence" and so on. It would have been good for this standard of evidence to be explained to us mere mortals, not of the judiciary. What's enough? In murder cases, the anecdotal smoking gun is something like DNA under the fingernails of the diseased. But what do you look for in an attempted hack? What's the smoking gun?

I doubt that these were questions that the judges would have been looking for, or at least, it did not seem so on the surface. And while I'm not a lawyer, and don't know what kind of training they get, this seemed to border way too much on the superficial. System logs are somewhat useful, but only when confirmed to be authentic and secure. We've seen the movies, and we know that logs can be altered. But I suppose they can form step number one in an investigation. A direction, a place to look and ask further questions that may lead to the truth. The blood trail tells you where to go, in order to find the body. But you must be willing to follow the trail.

All in all, I'm quite pleased that the IEBC has started to use technology to manage the country's elections. The move by the Kenyan Government to full eBusiness is to be congratulated as it will increase efficiency, and reduce the level of corruption at the lower ranks.

The Fatigue of just BEING

These days it seems like I cannot get away from tiredness. From the moment I get up, all through the day, a weariness that goes to the core. I don't know why?

The workaholic in me is truly awake. When I had a 9-to-5 job, while I still went above and beyond the call of duty, there were things to be done and timelines and deadlines to achieve them in. But now that I'm my own boss, I can pack my calendar with unrealistic visionary projects and deadlines that are all seemingly in the past.

I try to get in a bit of exercise early in the morning. I now know that this is the most realistic time to stick to anything of importance. I went through a writing exercise once in which I took time, every morning, from about 5 am, to write at least two pages long-hand. This is an exercise in creativity written about by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way. And for almost a year, at least I'd like to think it was that long, I was dedicated in waking up and writing, by hand, two full A4-format pages. Some days it took about 50 minutes to write, some days, 45 minutes, some days even an hour. But I always wrote and wrote with the thought that this will bear good fruit, sooner than later.

Like exercise. I know for a fact that weighing yourself each and every day is not good for the soul, especially if you are trying to lose weight. Perhaps weighing yourself monthly, or if you cannot help it, then weekly might be better. But daily, geez. That can be really disappointing. But the real trick is that sticking to a routine, a daily one, will work miracles, even when you don't feel the results, don't see them and feel rotten. The mere act of doing the work will bear results.

And that's probably where I am now. The fatigue of waking up, doing about one hour, sixty minutes, of a cardio routine, mechanically, robotically and then going through the day, and coming out at the end feeling tired of just being.

ON WRITING PRACTICE

I eventually stopped writing, but did not stop in believing that there was something to the practice. Of course there's a fundamental idea that staying put, keeping on the path, doing the drills as to get the muscle memory will eventually pan out. Just staying on the path will get you to a destination, albeit with many obstacles on the path. But it's better than staying put.

My writing practise stopped because it had become quite uninspiring. Even my determination that good things come to those who wait was waxing and waning till there was no inspiration left to do anything. Quite dry in fact. Until it became a slog-fest. Uninspiring and quite frankly tedious. So after a really long time, enough time in which I could attest that I gave it my best shot, I stopped. Not the idea of writing as an exercise, but the structure of the morning pages.

Now I write when I feel a block. I write when I am uninspired. Unlike most people who will only go to the keyboard when they feel that they have something to say, I feel that the best thing to do is write when I am lost. The writing becomes a method of finding my way. That way, I seem to absolve myself from the ownership of the content. I can write anything, in an uninspired state of mind, and feel some sense of accomplishment at the end.

And it was very tiring too - which is what I started writing about. In the beginning, I'd wake up anticipating getting to the page. And I'd write non-stop, as the exercise is supposed to. I was obsessed with not missing a single day, and when I could not make it to the pen and paper by 5 am, I tried to at least make it during the day, not morning pages, sometimes afternoon pages or evening pages or night pages. And then as the most precious time of the day, morning, was taken up in an exercise that I did not believe in, I started to feel cheated, robbed. One skipped day turned to two and then weeks turned to months. 

But like I mentioned, I still think that there's power in writing meditatively. Not writing with a singular purpose, but taking what's in your brain and spilling it out. You'll be surprised at the end that there's stuff there that needed to be penned. It was like a cancer eating at the soul and even though you can go to a meditation retreat and try on the silent mindfulness meditation, which is also positive in a clear-the-mind way, the best way to flush is to actually concentrate.

LAYING BRICKS

Thinking about something is OK, but doing the work, laying the bricks is a better meditative technique. Analysis paralysis - the strange condition where you're not quite ready to do the work, since you're in the planning stages. I could never be a project manager, the need to start laying bricks is too strong. But I have also been fond of planning ahead and sometimes the need to lay the brick perfectly slows me down, the work does not proceed since I keep asking if this is the best way for it to work. The story is inside my head, the characters are blurry, unfocussed, strangely boring and I wait for them to reveal themselves. But they don't so they never mature.

I love to write software and sometimes the same thing happens. I can see the software in my mind, like I see the hundred-story building in all its glory. But I worry that if I lay the first brick, I may be laying it wrong and then the consequence of the twists and turns later to make things right will make the ending ugly. So we don't get off the start line. And none of the characters get off the blurry platform and make it into the train, or the first line of code never gets written.

Amazingly though, as soon as I stopped worrying about the morning pages, and write only when I am uninspired, I found that I could allow myself to make a lot of mistakes. I allow my story not to be excellent and the software not to be perfect. I don't need to have all the answers before I start and somehow, things will work themselves out along the way.

Much like this blog - from today anyway.

Not planning details, but having an outline, a rough path mapped out on where to go. Details are not required, but mapping is always good. I realize that what makes it good about writing is the typing exercise, watching the words come out and solidify themselves on paper. Same thing with programming. The logic is flawlessly awesome and when you click on something and it works, a rush of endorphin gives you a little bit of a rush. You've automated something. And perhaps that's what the point is. Doing something repetitively is not a bad thing, there's a feeling of comfort in repetitive work as long as it is not boring. But the act of making a tool so that your work is easier is infinitely more rewarding - and even more rewarding is using that tool to make something.

BE YOURSELF

Why make your own table when you can buy one? Why make your own chair, or anything for that matter? In some cases it's a cost issue, but not always. The cost of buying sometimes is cheaper than the labour and materials to make it yourself. But the act of creation is a powerful aphrodisiac. There is a sense of accomplishment accompanied with satisfaction. And our altruistic selves then want to make something for someone else. The desire to make someone else happy is not just mammalian, but I suspect runs across all species.

This fatigue is caused not by just sitting, because I am quite active. But at the end of the day, doing work for others, productive work, is the key to happiness. No matter how much introspection you have or are willing to bear, ultimately, the greatest satisfaction is with sharing a part of you with humanity and not remaining in a cocoon. Which greatly explains the explosion of social media especially with the youth, the young, who have grown up in a world where connectivity is taken for granted, and can be experienced immediately. Unlike the old days when you would need to walk just to see a friend for a few minutes, in our digital world, an interruption by a friend, or a story, can happen at any moment.

And the desire to share what we are doing is an overpowering, intoxicating drug. Not to be alone, or at least not to feel alone. Even as I write this, I suspect that perhaps someone may read it, perhaps even all the way down to this paragraph. Who knows, they may connect with me at a different level in terms of what they are feeling and then they too may sit down and write something because something they have read has opened up their own personality. Because amazingly, not only do we learn by accretion, slowly and glacially, but we also learn by quick inspiration. Newton and his apple. Or Archimedes eureka moment. Sometimes it's a word spoken by someone, or an image seen. It is possible that life could change in a single moment, something happens and you are never the same again.

I have discovered, slowly, not by eureka, that I cannot think of what others want to read, or want me to say as I write. So I just have to expose myself and write and there will be people who will take this and critically say, no, that's not for me, while others may look at the writing and connect. Who knows, they may get their eureka moment.

Continuous Education - or where does learning stop.

Analysis paralysis is that state where you keep working on something, never finish it, because you're constantly thinking that you can make it better. You just keep doing the studying, the analysis, and never really engage on the project.

Learning and education can be like that as well. I remember, as a student, when I had a project to do, I'd start off in the library. It would take a really long time to get the work started, because I needed to make sure that I'd read absolutely everything I could about the subject before I started working on it.

But, of course, you can never really know everything. You can only know, what you know at that moment. And there's this fear that either, you don't know enough to do the work, or that if you knew more, you'd do a better job.

And it does not matter what career you're in, as The Desiderata says, "...for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

I like working with software and doing software development. I enjoy automating processes using computer programming. And in my life, I've worked with so many different languages, getting really good at some, and superficially competent in others. For a big part of my career, I wrote desktop applications and now, it's all either web-based, or mobile. And ultimately, I think that responsive mobile technology that also fits the web will win.

And this means learning new ways of writing software. Unlike the world of the 80's and 90's and even the 2000's, the choice of what tools to write software with is astounding. You cannot master everything, but can try to be really good at one or two.

And I have finally fixed my attention on the Python programming language. It's not the best, but it certainly is quite popular. It's easy to use and learn, and if you are a software algorithm fanatic, you can do some really cool things with it - both on the web side of things and also on the mobile and desktop app side of things.

My love for complex programming languages like C++ is still there - and I may keep flexing those muscles on non-work related things, just to keep interested and busy.

Something like this blog (and it's sister blogs about software development) which were originally so focussed on being good, but are now focussed on discussing what goes on in this mind of mine.

Python is a great language for doing so many things with information - after all, we are living in the information age. And like typing and writing, computer programming should be one of the basic tools that students leave college with. Arguably, being able to write comprehensively in any language is a good skill, but it's not a necessary skill for all types of work. Being able to write competent software helps build logic skills, which, like reading, writing and arithmetic, go a long way to keeping the brain flexible.

But having learned Python the next step was to select different frameworks for doing some of the work that I need to do. For web programs, I started learning how to use the Django framework, but soon gave that up for a lighter, easier, simpler framework called Flask. Django is a pre-built house, you just go in and move a few walls, paint and furnish and you're done. Django comes with database connectivity and security built in.

Flask, on the other hand, is like cement, bricks, wall and floor components as well as some fixtures. You assemble them yourself, build the house. Unlike Django, there's no house for you to start with, you need to assemble the basic stuff but that's very quick. You can get a simple Flask application running faster than a Django one (though the Django crowd may disagree).

And for desktop apps, I had settled on the Tcl/Tk interface (tkinter) that ships with Python. However, I discovered Kivy, which while takes some time to learn, does things a little faster once you have learned how to use it. With the added bonus that Kivy allows you to build mobile apps.

I'm ignoring everything else for now.

And hey, that doesn't mean that I won't start building apps until I've learned the entire language. Nope, apps are already being baked. And I have the added audacity of planning some tutorials which I'll release on my Python blog. For me, teaching is a way of learning.

Thoughts on my career.

I don't think that there's a perfect definition of the term employer. Looking at the Oxford definition, an employer is a person or organization that employs people. This seems very broad. Employ does not necessarily mean pay, but if we narrow that definition to include responsibility for paying those you employ, then perhaps we have a definition we can discuss issues around.

My first paid employment was with an engineering company in Kenya called East African Engineering. I don't remember too much about my responsibilities, but it was not a desk job. East African Engineering was mainly involved in road construction and I recall an assignment to measure traffic along a section of the road from Kenya into Uganda at the border town of Malaba. For an entire week my team took turns to count and categorize vehicles that were using the road. The goal of this exercise was to collect enough data for the engineers to design the upgrade of that section of the road that needed urgent repairs. 

Another part of the job with East African Engineering was lab work. We received soil samples from various parts of the country and our task was to measure certain properties of the soil. Mostly mechanical properties such as plasticity.

Regardless to say, I once thought I wanted to become and engineer, but after a summer at that job, I decided that this was no way I wanted to spend my life.

I graduated as an architect in 1990 during a serious recession in Canada. Most companies were folding up in Montreal and moving to Toronto. So when I graduated I spent months looking for work, handing resumes to countless construction and design firms in the city. I was finally hired as a draftsman by the architectural/engineering duo Kotansky and Kotansky. Two brothers who had a firm in Montreal and were doing a lot of work for the Canadian Tire company. Apart from Bill Kotansky, I was the only other architect in that office, but the other draftsmen knew much more about construction drawings than I did. It was here that I first used AutoCAD and fell in love with computer-aided drawing. I was at the bottom of the food chain and in the mornings it was my job to clean the kitchen and make the coffee. I did the dishes at the end of the day. We did not have kitchen cleaning staff, although the landlord cleaned the carpets and collected the garbage. 

During my summers at school, I worked often for one of my professors, Kumar Malde, possibly the best teacher in any subject that I ran across. My love for construction returned during my summer jobs in his office where we did a lot of timber and glue-laminated construction buildings. In this office, I continued to develop my software development skills, primarily using the Pascal programming language to help in the many engineering calculations we needed to do. 

I finally decided, possibly because of the recession and the fact that I started to realize that a career in design and construction would require personal connections, that I would move into software development. I saw both Bill Kotansky and Kumar Malde doing a lot of sales work, pitching their firm and their business and leaving the actual work to employees.

I completed a diploma from a private vocational training school - CDI (Career Development Institutes) - focussed on computer programming. I also studied computer network principles and graduated with an additional diploma as a network technician. These served me well as CDI employed me to teach the Programmer Analyst curriculum at one of their colleges. 

After a few years teaching, I moved to their head office to their curriculum development team. I was finally in charge of the development and maintenance of the software development training. I was finally in management and even though I wrote one course (to teach Visual Basic) and pitched another (C++), most of my time was spent evaluating courses written by other publishing houses for purchase and education at our college system.

A few years in curriculum development and the itch for "real" work came back. Many of my students had graduated and were finding better paying, more satisfying work in the "real" world. Finally an job posting caught my eye. The Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Pension Plan was looking for a Systems Administrator. Not specifically a programmer, but someone to take care of the technology. I applied for the position and after a few rounds of interviews, moved from CDI to CAAT.

It was at CAAT that I spent the next 22 years. From Systems Administrator to Director, Information Technology. From a staff of one (me) to a team of about twelve people including a software development team, a network and infrastructure team, a helpdesk and the start of a data management team.

I now considered myself an employer because I directed the team's work. In hindsight, I think the team was on of the best that I have ever had the opportunity to work with. As Paul Getty is quoted as saying, "An employer generally gets the employees he deserves."

But after 22 years of building the team, and working steadily and seeing the organization grow, it was time to return to my roots back in Kenya. My father was ready to retire and asked me to return and run his companies. Plural. A real estate company with one successful project and others in planning. And a farming company, originally started with coffee and tea, but now focussed mainly on avocado for export.

I am by no means a real estate professional, neither am I a farmer. Anything and everything that I have learned in my careers has been focussed on software projects. Even my early career quickly turned to software when I was exposed to AutoCAD. Even then, rather than spend time drawing using the software, I spent more time learning the underlying scripting language, AutoLisp, so that I could automate repetitive tasks. Why draw the same bathroom fixtures over and over again? Why draw the same windows, or doors, or electrical or plumbing fixtures. Draw once, then automate. Not just cut-and-paste, but actually run software to place these items given coordinates and other commands.

At CAAT, I wrote the first pension estimator, before the Internet, and it was shipped to the various colleges so that individuals could calculate pension estimates. That led to various web tools.

In my new role as employer I have to take a broader look at the company and figure out what the long term goals are. Given my technology background, the very first thing I did was move everything into the digital workspace. In a strange turn of events, COVID-19 ravaged the world and the changes I made allowed existing processes to continue suitably changed and automated.

In my new role as employer, different things keep me awake at night. Like our tax agents, making payroll each month, paying suppliers and other service providers, handling employee issues completely unrelated to work, hiring to expand and terminating employees who are no longer a fit.

In my former roles, I worked very hard to keep my job, to be successful based on the opinion of my supervisors, managers or even higher up. I worked hard to be recognized which was key to getting promotions. Long hours because I was not in control of any of the deadlines.

I'm slowly getting used to the idea that the buck (or in Kenya the shilling) stops with me. In thinking of these two lines of business, I must be bolder and channel our energies to work that is profitable. Like my father who moved away from coffee and tea as the main crop, while keeping the focus on farming and food production. Even the real estate venture was an opportunity which had huge risks and could have either succeeded well (which it did) or failed horribly.

As an employee I had no real emotional attachment to the company, other than the fact that it was providing my livelihood. As an employer I am starting to see this business as a child that needs to be nurtured and directed to grow as I see fit. To take calculated expansion risks and actively listen to advice that benefits the overall survival of the company.

Profitability is one measure of the health and well-being of the company. But so are non tangible factors such as smoothly running operations (how do you measure that), employee engagement (how do you measure that), work/life balance.

For now the focus is on articulating a strategic plan for the next five to ten years. I have enough knowledge in both real estate management and farming to properly manage the various teams. And this has only been three years.

Life is strange. Never would I have imagined or dreamed that I would be in his position. Not working specifically for a paycheque, but working to do good work for the sake of building something personal. And engaging like-minded employees who are willing (for money) to work hard to achieve my goals. Using their specific skills whether it is in farming, or tax/accounting or general sales and marketing.

One thing I know though is that business skills come from many areas. And my technical background is an asset in engaging systems for both food production, sales and marketing or just process management. I am definitely looking forward to the next 10 years of this company.

Lifelong Learning - The Renaissance Approach to Life

It must be simply amazing to be a child, exploring the world, knowing nothing, but not knowing that you know nothing. The entire world is amazing and everything is interesting.

Then come the challenges of formal education, knowledge acquisition, tests and certifications. There's still a lot of enthusiasm about life, especially if you are studying something that really interests you. I came across Architecture by pure accident, heading straight for an engineering life. But a summer job with East African Engineering soured my taste for that work and I switched into something that was more challenging.

Finally, after formal schooling, armed with the right paperwork, you enter the real world, ready, batteries charged expecting to find a reality matching the creative and exploratory world of formal education.

But alas, that is not so. Most of you will not end up in the vocations in which your formal education certified you in, but that's OK. I truly believe that the function of formal education, post Renaissance, is an opening of the mind, unlocking potential. While clerical and repetitive work is still required, and still very valuable, many of us will have multiple careers spanning very many different types of work which will not necessarily have an opportunity, or luxury, to for formal training.

And so you must become a lifelong learner.

Picasso is often quoted as having said, "Every child is born an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." That quote sums up a lot of what is happening in education today. That at some point, we stop learning.

Being a lifelong learner means that you must have the desire, make the time and have the patience and persistence to explore your interests in this world. I said that. And explore it in a meaningful way by taking action. Doing things that reflect this passion to learn. 

I have former employers who are passionate about teaching, and are teaching and writing and working. By teaching they are exploring the subjects that they are passionate about, reading about them, attending conferences, sharing thoughts with like-minded people, and learning the latest technologies driving those topics.

It doesn't take much effort, if it's something that you really want to do. However, in our fast food world, when results don't appear quickly, we often give up. I have a clarinet that I one day intend to master, but I simply don't make the time to practice. That alone says a lot.

But I spend a considerable amount of time journaling, writing software and even creating YouTube tutorials on various software topics. That also says a lot about where my interests lie.

And a quick look at my library, what I read and what I'm most comfortable discussing will tell you that while it does not line up in parallel with my day job, there is an overlap that allows my interest to spill over into my employment.

Desire, Reality and Practicability

In our twenty-first century thinking, we tell our children that they can grow up to be anything that they want to be. And many of us will immediately realize that the statement is not a statement of reality, but one of inspiration. If you reach for the stars, you may end up touching the moon. Pushing this idea too much in education may seriously injure some children, while others may not be affected at all.

And so too in life, there must be a healthy balance between what is desired and the practical reality of what can be achieved. There is no formulaic answer to this question for everyone. It depends greatly on circumstance and is specific to each individual. I personally think it's a wonderful world in which no two of us are alike, and so comparisons of skills become a moot debate. In a world that values financial success as absolute success, this can be difficult to mentally reconcile. But getting over this hurdle is the first step to success itself.

Our educational systems train us into various disciplines. We cannot achieve the Renaissance ideal and work in a variety of fields. But the Renaissance ideal is the approach to life. It is OK to have a passion for sculpture, painting, gardening, nature as well as science, abstract thought, teaching and literature. And while it may seem that these passions may be doused if your day job entails handling irate customers in a call centre, or managing a reception desk, the reality is that these interests can be exercised, honed in the event that the circumstances change.

Here's what I mean.

Gone are the days of a fixed career, doing the same thing. It's more likely that the job you have when you leave school will not be the same job that you have when you are retiring thirty years later. Even if its with the same company. While the career path from a clerical, processing task-oriented job may ultimately lead to managing those responsible for the task, its also likely that that type of work will not exist by the time you are ready to manage it. Your current job will likely change right before your eyes even if its due simply to changes in technology. In fact, being outsourced to computers is happening right now.

And one way to mitigate the risk of becoming obsolete is to continue to flex your mental muscles. Anything you do, outside your regular day job, will flex those muscles as long as it involves learning. And all learning involves gaining new skills. New skills are skills you don't have now. Or, an improvement, upgrading, enhancement of skills that you have. Speaking skills by taking Toastmasters classes. Project management skills by taking classes, or even joining volunteer organisations outside your workplace that put you in management roles. Finance skills by formal training.

And the list can go on. However, the aim is to keep looking at your interests and taking real action to build on them.

As a formally trained Architect, I confess that my ability to construct a building today would take some time to review my class notes (which are very obsolete), however, one of the great things about studying Architecture was its multi-disciplinary approach. A little bit of engineering, a dash of art, a smattering of literature, a spoonful of project management all baked in the study of regulations and legislature. And Oh, don't forget sales - all project work was presentation based. So when I graduated, like many in my class, I was a jack of many trades, a master (as yet) of none. And many of my classmates have succeeded in becoming interior designers, project managers, photographers, artists, engineers and yes, architects.

I suspect that the same applies to a lot of fields. This is probably why many politicians are lawyers, as are corporate leaders. And why educators come from all fields.

My challenge therefore is for you to:

• List your interests, formal skills you'd like to acquire or enhance.
• Find time to practice one of them.
• Read and find literature to enhance this skill.
• See where it fits in your day job - you'd be surprised that some of the skills will find a home there.
• Find groups (it may be professional associations or social ones) that you can join to learn more.
• Read, read and read more.

Lifelong learning is a skill, and one that is absolutely necessary for survival in a world that is constantly changing.

Writing Practice

I was at a book launch about a week ago, the author, a respected accountant, auditor and lawyer was introducing his second book on taxes. The event was very well attended and interesting. This was the very first book launch I had ever been to and I compared it to a graduation party. In essence, it was a graduation party.

The guest speaker, a high profile cardiologist, gave us excellent background on the author, who is very credentialed. But also admitted that they have not written a book. He was also followed by some high profile members of society in our country, including some academics at a couple of the various universities, and they too admitted that while they had written academic papers, they never had the courage, or patience, to write a book.

In fact, only one other person in the audience had written a book and when she spoke, gave the audience insight to the difficulties in writing.

Writing a book is hard.

Writing a paper in a subject you know very well is not as hard. It might be challenging, but it's not hard.

Writing a blog, like this one is easy. Because it is personal and the time I have to spend on it is not a lot.

I have written a couple of book-length treatises. I have not had the will to publish them because even when I finished writing them, I was not sure that I had done justice to the story I was trying to tell. After putting down the story for a couple of months, and re-reading it afresh, I thought differently.

Julia Cameron is a published author. I have not read any of her fictional work, but I have read a couple of books that have inspired me to pick up a couple of books that I started years ago with the intention of completing them. Whether the story is successful is not the point. At this juncture, the point is to get a book length book completed.

The first book of Julia's that gave me practical advice was The Artist's Way. This book introduced the practice of Morning Pages. An exercise where you write, on a daily basis, three pages in longhand (not typewritten, but using a pen and paper). You do this every single morning. I started writing Morning Pages in February 2022, and so far, almost 60 days later, I can tell that my attitude to sitting down to writing is very different.

The second book, which I think must be read after one reads The Artist's Way, is The Sound of Paper. In The Sound of Paper, Julia describes the life of an artist in a very human way. The challenges of sitting down to do the work. Periods of droughts. Periods of doubts. Waiting, or not, for Inspiration (capital "I"). The curse of the ever present critic. The disastrous aiming for perfection. Nurturing the inner child. There's a ton of good advice to unpack in this book, but I would have only comprehended it after reading The Artist's Way.

My inner critic is not gone. But they are manageable.

My search for perfection is problematic, because I still pause a lot in the first draft, but I can now see pages happening on a daily basis. They're not all good pages, but I'm moving forward.

Before I read The Artist's Way, I had read Natalie Goldberg's book, Writing Down the Bones. In Natalie's book, a similar writing practice where you do not lift the pen off the page, but keep it moving is encouraged. I admit, it's been a while since I read Natalie's book, and it was Julie's book that actually got me moving on writing seriously again, but the two books fill that need to practice between the serious writing. And so I do both. In the morning, I spend time writing the three pages, longhand. And I do it in the Natalie style, continuous movement without interruption. And then at lunchtime, or when I know I have about fifteen, or more, minutes to spare, I take my pen again and in the style of Natalie, I write.

Right after my Morning Pages exercise, I try to write a couple of pages of my book. Whereas before I would not even dare contemplate writing until I thought I was inspired, I simply sit at the keyboard and start writing. Sooner or later, my muse catches up with me and we work together for a while. Some days I can only write one page, other days more. But the point is that I don't wait to "feel" like writing, to sit and write. In fact, most days I actually don't "feel" like writing, but I open the novel that I'm working on, go all the way to the bottom, read the last sentence and just start. Shitty first drafts, that's what I do.

I said earlier that writing a book is hard. Writing a novel, between 50,000 and 110,000 words is difficult. And to achieve that takes more than talent. Talent accounts for a small portion, dedication and work (putting in the time) counts for much more.

So I'll leave you with three quotes to wrap up this blog, and hopefully encourage you to just to the work, whether you feel ready or not, just do it.

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann

A genius! For 37 years I've practised fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!
(Spanish Violinist)

-- Pablo Sarasate

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.

-- Michelangelo

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