Fear and Loathing in the Time of Plague.

I’m always excited when Patty asks me to write something. Narcissism? Probably, but it’s still fun to share with another whole group of people. I mean, I don’t know a Manolo Blahnik from a Christian Siriano, but I do know an IPv4 subnet mask from a Cisco Wildcard. In this time of attention/non-attention, it’s even more exciting to talk with you. In this time where the world has seemingly come to a halt but hasn’t. Surreal images of places you have been shut down are very strange. I saw a picture of 45th in New York, deserted. Creepy. I saw a picture of the sidewalk outside Caesar’s Palace where I stood smoking a cigar with a bunch of hackers last August, deserted. Creepy. I saw Paris with empty streets. Creepy.

I want to shout out to all the doctors, nurses, cleaning crews, cafeteria workers, police, fire, EMTs, and everyone else on the front lines who is working to try and save people’s lives from COVID-19. I want to shout out to all the musicians, artists, street performers, and wait staff, who are wondering about their livelihoods and trying to hang on until the day when they can get back to doing their jobs. I want to shout out to all the parents who are trying to teach their children at home and just trying to figure out how to work from home while entertaining a 6-year-old. I want to shout out to everyone else to do good things and be kind. It’s hard not to take the last roll of toilet paper at the grocery or to stay in when you want to go out.

Now, Patty usually asks me for travelogs but I think my trip to the grocery store was kind of boring, so I decided to talk about what I had been thinking about all this. I found this to be a difficult request. I think mostly I have felt a sense of entitlement. My grandparents were around in the Spanish Flu epidemic. I even asked my grandmother once about it and all she remembered (she was 13) was that they went to the farm and stayed there. She said that it was pretty much nice since they usually lived in a lumber camp. That always seemed like perseverance to me, and my Grandmother was tough, but even that started to seem like entitlement. The real suffering was avoided and everyone survived because they had the luxury of going to the farm. When the call came to “go online,” I thought, well everyone is heading to the farm now, but some of us were already there. So, even more, I felt that I was pretty entitled to not have to deal with the stress of trying to change my whole job around, my life around, my ideas around to accommodate an invisible microbe.

How has life changed for narcissistic, computer hackers (of the good kind) in these troubling times? Honestly, not that much. I realize that it is an entitlement in and of itself to be able to say that, but I don’t want to make light of all the trauma and suffering that other people are experiencing. The day to day world is often invisible as I sit here with my camera and lights or just writing in the dark. You don’t see what is going on in Lennox Hill Hospital or down at the homeless shelter. That’s why I liked to travel, to see the rest of it, so that everything else doesn’t get too invisible. For me, I teach classes online, I have been doing it for years since I like the idea a lot even when I don’t have to worry about contagions. I also do an online podcast, which now has to be done from home since Security Weekly shut the studio, but again, it’s not that different (although I don’t get to go to the Indian Restaurant across from the studio twice a week), and my other jobs are pretty much all either already done or doable online. I write cert tests for police labs around the world but, again, online. I think my planned speaking engagement in Germany is canceled this summer, so my daughter and I won’t get to go to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Any world without Europe trips is sadder, sigh, entitlement again. We also missed out on skiing at spring break, entitlement. I got my trip to speak in Orlando canceled and also the one in Boston. Sad, entitled. Sigh. So, essentially, I get a combination of relief that my jobs can be done online, ennui from not being able to go to my favorite restaurants and fun speaking engagements, and guilt from the ennui and not being able to help more. Should have gone to med school. But, I have only experienced inconvenience and ennui rather than the fear, loss, and suffering that so many are experiencing.

I also experience frustration as misinformation, stupidity, ignorance, and just general douchebaggery are reported. I see people hoarding, refusing to listen to the scientists, and being taken in by charlatans touting magic, cures or just denying that the virus exists. I understand that we all wish the Essential Essence of Gwyneth Paltrow would cure all our ills, but it won’t. So, rely on science. Really. As a statistician, I can explain the exponential growth curve for you and it’s a scary thing. But, I can’t do as good a job as that YouTuber with the lily pads so I won’t try, but find a source on which you can rely and pay attention.

So, from those of us who have been doing this for years, living online is a learning experience. It takes time to be comfortable in the remote world, so don’t expect it to fall in place in a week or two. You will have to adapt, you will have to upgrade your approach, but that is what humans are good at doing in general. Also, upgrade your compassion and understanding. Don’t forget that entitlement if you are fortunate enough to have it. The idea that it’s no big deal is easy to grab onto because bombs aren’t falling and people aren’t fleeing in panic at my house - and probably not at yours - so it’s easy to forget what is going on down at the shelter or the hospital. So, do what you can to help or, at least, do no harm.

In the end, and this is the second hardest thing I have ever written, let’s try to do better. This too shall pass and we will move on, but this time let’s try not to forget and let’s make this terrible time a way forward to the future and change. Warren Zevon once said “Don’t let us get sick, don’t let us get old, don’t let us get stupid, alright?” and I think that’s pretty spot on.

More About Doug

Doug White is the host of Security Weekly News at Securityweekly.com, Chair of the [online] Cybersecurity and Networking Department at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI, Cybersecurity and Technology Consultant, and some other things.

This Local Tech Guy And Podcaster Talks Staying Put, Living Online, & Listening To Science