Lions and Lambs

 I rather liked my painting analogy - it helps explain what I mean when I say that an idea is floating around in the back of my mind, but that it hasn't come together to the point where I can write it.

The problem is that I will play around with the idea in my head and follow it through to a certain extent - and then realize that I'm focusing too much on one part of the whole. Like going into great detail about the way a fish is painted, and never discussing the reflected trees. 

I could talk about a book I read - about the Carolingians. The descendents of Charlemagne, and in particular the fighting between his grandsons. How they exemplify the differences between the average person and people in power. How all their petty squabbling with each other meant that they put multiple armies in the field - armies that generally had to live off the land, and therefore were a plague on the local populace - and despite all the violence and suffering never really got anywhere with it.

How their pride prevented them from doing as Jesus said, and being 'good shepherds' to their people. 

But pretty soon I feel like I'm just rehashing things I've said before, and I don't think anything I say is going to convince people like that 'take care of your people' is something they should take seriously.

And that's not really worth discussing yet again.

No, I think the issue is that if you want to have lions lay down with the lambs, you have to discuss the lions. 

It's tempting to say 'just get rid of the lions and everything would be great'. We even have the story of the baboons who grew more peaceful after the most aggressive baboons died out en masse.

But we're not really two separate species, people have the potential to be both. Get rid of the 'lions', and it probably won't be long before people like that start appearing again. 

Besides, I don't think they're evil in and of themselves. God probably even admires them, kind of like we do. 

See how sharp their claws are. Hear those fierce roars. See the way their muscles flow as they move.

For a lion to lay down with a lamb, you probably need the lion to... not be hungry, not feel the need to prey on the lamb... and probably get enrichment in other ways so they don't have the desire to stalk or pounce or hunt the lamb.

If you had asked me before, I'd have said that's part of what was great about democracy. That even the more predatory of our species knew that in order to get what they wanted, they had to play be certain rules that protected the rest of us. 

Does it matter if they're power hungry and prideful if the only way to gain power is to at least pretend to care?

It doesn't feel like that anymore, though. 

Clearly 'be a good shepherd' and 'the first will be last, and the last will be first' are ideas that the current predatory lions don't believe in.

Hmmmm. The ideas floating around there still feel off, but to be honest I'm more concerned with preparing for my next potential career change than digging into it any deeper. 

Too bad I can't just make a living throwing out random blog posts.

Update

 I had some further thoughts on my post about lions and lambs, but most of that was drowned out by my current thoughts on my job and how my coworker tells me that they will yet again try enforcing the 'work from the office' rule (which I've pointed out before I think is a truly terrible idea. Why are so many companies acting so stupid about this?)

This weekend I was reminded again of my original wishes when I studied computer science - to get into cybersecurity - and some of my further thoughts on it.

Namely, that I realized I don't really care for the CISSP material, and trying to calculate exposure factors or memorizing the CIA triangle. 

I've realized, in DevOps at least, that I like just quietly figuring out things. Like, let me dig into the documentation or the logs or try to track down the root cause of some issue or write some script to make our jobs easier or figure out how to create a dashboard to make monitoring easier... 

 I can communicate effectively and can do the bigger picture meetings and the like, but honestly I'd rather just dig into the details.

Which is why I think I'd do better as a malware researcher.

Except...

Well, I don't have a lot of practical experience with assembly. And I've been using Linux at work far more than Microsoft, so I only know a bit about Microsoft Internals.

I have a good overview of the skills I need, I think. But I need practical experience, and just haven't really felt like trying to create a sandbox where I can play around with it. Not when I've been mentally exhausted from my full time job.

Bug bounties seem... a little easier, in the sense that you can get started whenever. But it looks like that requires a lot more knowledge about the front end. About javascript and tools to test for things like SQL injection or cross site scripting or all the OWASP things.

Again, I kind of have an overview of the topic but not a lot of practical experience. Again, however, there are a TON of tools online and I can probably get that. I could do things like Hack the Box.

The bigger concern there is that even though some people are able to make quite a bit of money, it also sounds like the average bug bounty hunter doesn't make as much. I don't really want to take a pay cut...

I could also consider just freelancing in general.

Idk. I'm confident that given the time and a task I can figure out just about anything, but I'm less confident in doing so in a way that will lead to a financial security.

The thought of going fully independent is thrilling - and also terrifying.

To be honest, I'd probably be content to just quietly stick with DevOps for at least a few more years, if the company wasn't being so persistent in enforcing such a terrible idea. It's like they care more about obedience than actual skill, and if that's how they really are then I guess we're not a good fit.

(I could also look for another DevOps position, fully remote. Stick with what I know and all that.)

I haven't yet been told I'm fired for this btw, but I don't see myself going to the office like they want so it's probably just a matter of time. Maybe this is a good time to try to transition into what I really want...

But is it better to focus on the malware analysis and try to find a job there? Or to learn more about bug bounty hunting? Or explore some other options?

Meh. I guess it'll just have to play out the way it will. 

It makes me wish I had the money to ignore all that and focus on the malware research side of things. I think if I took a couple of the courses online, got a certification or two, and then went job hunting I could probably make the transition just fine. (SANS courses sound so cool. And yet they're horribly expensive, and I think the costs are meant to be paid for by the companies hiring people. And yet most of the positions for those sorts of companies look like they expect you to already have experience in that specific area, so trying to get hired on as a beginner seems like a bit of a long shot unless I get those certs).

I'm not really sure how this will go, but I guess it's not an immediate issue.Yet.

But enough about that. Since I'm already online I'll start that follow up post next.

Working From Home

Yet again it sounds like my company is trying to force people into the office. 

Part of me thinks I'm crazy for risking my job over this, but the other part of me? 

I'm tired. 

I don't want to be forced into doing something stupid just because I don't want to lose my job. 

Not do I want to support a company that doesn't see what a bad idea this is. 

I don't expect my position to change anything on their end. Big organizations always tend to think they're better off without employees that disregard their policies (unless maybe you're high enough of a level that they care enough about keeping you), so I fully expect to just suffer the consequences. 

I just... Don't want to deal with it. If working in the office is really so important that they would rather lose one of their best employees (and I'm not just saying that. I've built a bit of a reputation for knowing the app and being able to fix things) then it's probably a sign to hat this isn't the place for me. 

Fitting

I've had a few thoughts that follow from my previous post, but nothing solid enough to write about. 

Still, I came across a quote in some fiction I'm reading that seemed relevant, although part of what I'm considering is how to tell whether this is really true or not. 

Sometimes, odd as it sounds,I wish I was rich just so I'd have the access to decide for myself if this is true. It seems likely? Multiple sources definitely believe it. It's just... You'd think if it were true that more of the elite would realize there's something wrong about it.

I sometimes suspect that the 'elite' who are so driven are like that because they're... Broken. Or at least, they're not generally happy and well adjusted.

But what do I know?

Anyways, the quote:

"Regular people care about things like having a good life, eating well, talking with friends, and finding love. The elite care about power and control. They obsess over it, and are terrified of losing it.”

—The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy by UraniumPhoenix

Read for free at https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/81002/the-years-of-apocalypse-a-time-loop-progression/chapter/1674369/chapter-67-allies

Various Musings

 Consider how you would describe a great work of art, like this one.

Do you talk about the trees? The fish? The water?  

The reflections? The feelings they invoke? The symbolism?

You can draw attention to one part of it, and lose sight of the whole. 

Anyways, I was thinking about that because I've had a post itching at me for a while now, but when I tried thinking of what I wanted to say it was like focusing on just one part of the whole.

Or perhaps I needed to figure out what layer to focus on.

When I pull back the layers, well. It's easier to use the religious terms I grew up with, though I don't necessarily mean you have to believe to understand.

Let's go with one of the basic tenets - God is good.

He isn't cruel, he wouldn't create a world that pits us against each other, nor one where we have to be cruel to each other to survive.

And yet... that doesn't seem to be the world we live in. There are lions, and there are lambs, and the lions eat the lambs, and it would take some sort of divine intervention to make the lions lay down with the lambs without eating them.

Some people use the cold cruelty of the world to argue God doesn't exist, or any number of metaphysical arguments, but whatever. Let's not get distracted and keep it simple -

God would not create a world where we have to step on each other in order to find happiness, peace, or security.

This is generally when I like to pull out the whole allegory of the long spoons, but I think that doesn't address the real problem. 

It's not that the logic doesn't make sense, it's that people don't believe it really works like that.

You could almost say they lack...

Faith.

We generally end up thinking something like 'Yeah, in an ideal world we wouldn't have to _____, but... '

But in this world, other people lie and cheat. You're just doing what you have to do.

You have to play the game.

You have to be realistic.

You have to ______.

Do note, there's an underlying fear to all of these. That doing the right thing isn't enough. That nice guys finish last. That it is impossible to get anywhere unless you compromise yourself somehow... 

And thus the world gets divided into the powerless, who perhaps are wise enough to realize they don't care for such games, and thus give up on trying to have power and influence in order to live content with a smaller life... 

And the power hungry, who strive for the top - and in the process make choices that generally reinforce the whole system.

This is where I like to bring up Hope for the Flowers. All that fighting generally just replaces whoever is at the top, but the system remains the same.

It's just making yourself another cog in the machine. A fancy cog, perhaps. Made out of expensive jewels and set in the nicest materials... but a cog nonetheless.

I mean, sure... it's nice to be at the top. And of course I can see the appeal of having tons of money and power and influence... but it also seems rather meaningless.

If not you, it'd be someone else. And you're not changing the system, you're just putting yourself at the top.

Same old, same old.

When I think of the forces behind that tired old pattern, it seems to me that it's mostly about fear, and control. 

And scarcity... but what is scarcity if not the fear that there won't be enough?

Or perhaps it also comes from callousness. The combination of fear that there won't be enough, as well as the willingness to ignore other people's needs in order to secure your own access.

Did the callousness come first, or the fear - and the callousness is just your way of ignoring the consequences of your fearful decisions?

Hmmm. I'm focusing too much on one piece now, let me back up a bit.

I also wanted to talk about cognitive dissonance and integrity.

Integrity - not in the sense of 'honest and forthright', but in the sense of 'whole and undivided'.

In other words 'without cognitive dissonance'.

Because if God is good and we don't have to be cruel to each other to survive (and thrive)... then how do we justify what we do?

How, over and over and over again, do people keep doing things that are cruel and hurtful?

How do health insurance companies keep justifying their denial of necessary medical treatment?

How do CEO's justify hurting their employees while raising prices that hurt consumes, all to satisfy shareholders?

Are they knowing assholes - where you may despise them, but you can at least credit them for being true to their asshole selves?

Or do they have cognitive dissonance, and cover and cloak what they do with justifications and turning a blind eye? Typical human frailties, perhaps, but frustrating nonetheless. (Yes, I put most of the political forces claiming they're christian in this category. They have to be suffering some sort of cognitive dissonance to think there's any part of God's will in what they're doing. They're fighting to be king of the hill - same old, same old. There's no sense of the divinity to it.)

If God is good, and we don't have to be cruel to each other...

Then I generally think it's the latter. That if given time to listen to that quiet inner voice, to look within and hear such things...

That it's a bit like the parable of the orange - two people are fighting over who gets the orange, but when they finally communicate correctly they realize that one wants the orange for the flesh inside, and the other wants the peel in order to make orange zest.

I know it sounds hopelessly naive and idealistic, but if we really dig into what people want, if we really listen to those inner voices, if we don't decide based on our fears...

Are we really in conflict? Must we fight?

Can the lion really lay down with the lamb?