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Duncan at 12: Like Me, Only Better

Yesterday my younger son, Duncan, turned 12. He’s been through a lot, and he makes me proud every day.

Mood music:

I often tell people Duncan is the spitting image of me at that age. He certainly looks like I did at 12. And as I did, he has developmental challenges. As a kid I was never diagnosed with something like ADHD or placed on the autism spectrum. But that was the early 1980s, when kids weren’t regularly tested for such things.

I was sick and hospitalized a lot, and I think people chalked my immaturity and slowness to learn as byproducts of a lot of missed school. As I got older, some teachers labeled me as less than average. In middle school they placed me in the C group for 7th and 8th grade. I don’t think we remember childhood events exactly as they were, but it seems there were more than a few teachers who didn’t think I’d amount to much.

I hope I defied those expectations, but it took a lot of work that didn’t start until adulthood and a proper diagnosis.

Duncan has been through the wringer in his young life, going through neurological testing; switching schools, doctors and medications; and spending many hard hours getting through homework. But in the last two years, he has made enormous progress.

With the assistance of some excellent teachers and administrators — and some great work on the part of the Triumph Center — he has made huge strides. His focus is better, and his social skills have made a quantum leap in the last couple years. I also give Erin a ton of credit for the time and effort she puts in for Duncan every day. Some days can be difficult and he doesn’t always appreciate how relentless his mom can be. But some day he will.

Some things haven’t changed, thankfully. He’s always had a heart as big as the sky, eager to help those in need, including a new student in his class in need of friends. He still has a big range of interests that he works at, most notably cooking and music. And he has a command of vocabulary that’s hard to come by in kids his age. He writes not because he has to — some school assignments notwithstanding — but because he enjoys it.

He cares about all life and has chastised me more than once for killing a fly. The neighbors’ pets love him, coming right up to him when he’s outside. They know his is a gentle, sweet soul. And he’s a dedicated Boy Scout.

At that age, I was usually lucky to get the occasional B or A, often getting Cs and Ds. About all I cared about was going to movies and playing with my Star Wars toys.

Parents dream that their kids will climb to greater heights they they did. Duncan, like his brother, is well on his way to fulfilling that dream for me.

Happy birthday, Duncan. Keep soaring!

Bill and Duncan Brenner
Left: Duncan, 2015. Right: me, 1983
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My Anti-Drama Code of Conduct

Man, there are a lot of hurt feelings out there lately. In my industry, they call it security drama. But it goes way beyond that. Post your political and religious beliefs and someone is quick to tear you apart.

I’m not going to summarize the latest examples. A lot of Facebook and Twitter streams are already clogged with all that snot. Instead, I’m going to tell you the behavioral code I try to live by when blogging and using social media.

Mood music:

When I blog, I opine forcefully. I make no apologies and I don’t back down. After 20-plus years in journalism — 11 of it focused on information security — I know that if I make a forceful argument, as many people will disagree with me as those who agree.  This is especially true if the topic is religion or politics. I also know that I’m going to get it wrong once in awhile, since opinions usually come about as a story is unfolding, before all the facts are in place. I also know that I’m going to offend people once in a while without meaning to.

With all this in mind:

  • I go out of my way not to insult people with name calling. This wasn’t always the case, but over time I realized nothing good comes of it.
  • When people take issue with something I write, I don’t respond. I used to but decided that doing so isn’t much different from whining. And since I’ve already made my case in a post, I see no reason to repeat myself. If someone is critical of what I say, I let the comment stand. Everyone is entitled to their point of view. And if someone is an asshole, that’s all the more reason not to respond. Engaging assholes is pointless, because their agenda isn’t to have a constructive discussion in the first place.
  • When I realize I was wrong about something, I promptly admit it.
  • If I post something that triggers traumatic memories for someone, I’ll take the post off of Facebook. Some folks will complain that we’ve become too politically correct and that we can’t worry about the few who complain. But that’s not the point. My agenda is to share an experience or belief — never to do someone harm. Some folks will claim they’ve been triggered over something and will never look at my writing for what it is. When that’s the case, I tell them to unfriend me. If we’re not connected, you won’t see my posts. Problem solved.
  • If I wade into what people see as drama in my industry, it’s because I think I can bring some people to the middle ground. Increasingly, though, I stay away from that. When passions reach critical mass, injecting reason becomes impossible.
  • Even when writing about unhappy experiences, I try to point out the positives. My father’s final weeks were painful, but I got to spend a lot of time with him and make sure nothing was left unsaid. Sad periods have their beauty, too.

If you think these examples are helpful to you, I’m glad. If not, that’s fine, too. I’m telling you what I do, not what I think you should do.

Buzz and Woody: Triggers are everywhere

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Dealing with 9/11: Then and Now

I wasn’t in New York City the day the Twin Towers fell. I know many people who were, and they have the scars and stories to show for it. My 9/11 experiences are not heroic or even all that dramatic. But they are case studies in personal growth.

It was a terrible day, but I’d like to think we all learned something positive about how to live in the aftermath. This is simply my personal measuring stick.

“Sept. 11, 2001”
Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on Sept. 11, 2001. This post is my own account.

“Songs That Mattered After 9-11-01”
Like so many other times in my life, music made the difference between sanity and insanity. I focus a lot on the metal. But in the weeks after 9/11, I turned to a broader group of musicians to help me along. They did their jobs well, helping us all see that it was OK to go on living.

“Flying on September 11”
One of my biggest moments of shame came a week after September 11, 2001, when I scrubbed a planned trip to Arizona for a relative’s wedding. I was terrified to get on an airplane and fear won out. Not only did I miss an important day in a loved one’s life, I also deprived my wife of the same thing. I didn’t want her flying, either.

“TV News and Depression: How I Learned To Turn It Off”
I find myself increasingly outraged at what I see on the TV news channels. I’m not talking about the news itself, but the way it’s presented with loud graphics, dramatic music and louder newscasters. Those feelings started on 9/11.

“9/11 Lessons: We Rise Again”
As we take time to remember those we lost on 9/11, let’s also remember what we’ve held onto.

“I Didn’t Know Danny Lewin, But I’m Grateful for Him”
As an Akamai Technologies employee, I practically inhaled Molly Knight Raskin’s book, No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet. It’s a spectacular look at the history of the company and the experience of losing Lewin on 9/11.

“A 9-11 Obsession”
It happens every time the calendar rolls into September. I start watching documentaries about 9/11 and can’t stop.

“9-11-01 Jumpers: A Suicidal Mystery”
I remember the photo well: a man falling to his death in a zen-like pose that haunted me for a long, long time. It haunted us all.

Sept. 11, with the twin towers as the 11

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Nana’s Desk

It’s been more than two years since Nana Ruth passed away. The other day, family went through her house, looking for possessions to be preserved. Like this desk:

11145193_10207908092926642_85509940102281960_o

Nana Ruth did a ton of writing at this desk. She was a prolific diarist and churned out a lot of letters. I’m going to keep the tradition alive my doing a lot more writing here.

I’d like to think she’d be pleased about that.

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Schooled By a 14-Year-Old on Good (and Bad) Passwords

This is about an information security practitioner getting schooled by a 14-year-old about something as basic as an iPhone PIN number.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/Lj3bCXViNNM

Since I work in information security, family expects me to be THE expert. And sometimes I ask for trouble when I try to teach people a lesson — like grabbing phones and writing on the owners’ Facebook walls to demonstrate the value of having a security PIN on the phone.

One day my oldest son decided to give me a taste of my own medicine.

He had been watching me punch in my PIN for some time, and when the opportunity arose, he grabbed my phone, correctly entered the PIN and wrote on my Facebook wall.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” my son said. “You’re Mr. Security in the family, but you let yourself get hacked by someone who can’t even drive a car.”

Fair enough.

The lesson: No matter how much experience you have in security, you’re still an easy target if you get lazy. In my case, I was lazy about regularly changing my PIN.

I don’t think he’ll guess what it is now. But I’ll change it again soon, just to be safe.

iPhone-passcode

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Anxiety Level Green

A while back I wrote about the various stages of anxiety based on the first five colors of Newton’s primary color system. In the last week, I’ve realized that I’ve been at level green for at least three months.

Mood music:

At the time I wrote it, my description for Level Green was:

Green. This anxiety appears when the less-frequent stresses spark up. Yesterday was a perfect example in my world: I was already ramped up from spending the previous evening at the hospital holding vigil while my father faced emergency surgery that ultimately didn’t happen. The plumber was coming to install a new dishwasher, and to pound my mind into submission, I went on a chore spree. Then my cell phone died for good, and I had to spend the afternoon replacing it. The latter two events are problems we’re lucky to have, since the alternative is being too broke to afford these things. But it sent the day on a trajectory I hadn’t anticipated. The only cure for this one right now is to reach the end of the day and go to bed.

In the last several months a lot of stress has been in my life. My aunt and father died a week apart in June and my stepfather died in late July. A relative has been in legal trouble and there’s been a lot of wrangling about how best to help him.

Meanwhile, I’ve taken on responsibility for the site of the former family business, which is in sorry shape and in need of costly repairs. I’m learning more about the legal, real estate and financial systems than I ever cared to know.

I’m grateful for everything I’ve been learning along the way, but it’s a rollercoaster. Rollercoasters elevate the heart rate, and this ride won’t end after a few minutes. It’s time to address the low-level anxiety that keeps my chest tight, my head sore and my legs heavy.

All in all, life is good, and I’m learning to manage the added family business without letting it bleed all over the other parts of my life. Wife, kids and work are all well, and I’ve gotten through the last few months without collapsing into a bottle of numbing liquid. I’m admittedly pleased about the things I’m learning along the way, because it puts me in a better position to provide for my family going forward.

I’m glad that at this stage of my life I can see the feelings for what they are and act accordingly.

Swim Upstream by Eddietheyeti
“Swim Upstream” by EddieTheYeti
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A Musical Approach to Blog Writing

I’m often asked how I came up with my process for writing and promoting my blog posts. Each time I offer a musician’s analogy.

Mood music:

I write posts the way a musician writes a song: scrawling lyrics down on napkins and notepads, perfecting the chorus and bridge of each song by playing them over and over, tweaking them as the mood dictates.

Sometimes I’m writing a one-off post and sometimes I’m writing a series, just as the musician writes a single song or an album’s worth of music. The posts I’ve revolved around the artwork of EddieTheYeti is a good example of the latter.

If I write something I think is particularly good, I’ll post the link to it in different forums across the Internet to bring it to share it with as many people as possible. Sometimes I’ll do that kind of promotion for a day or a week. Sometimes I’ll share links of older posts, bringing them back when they fit a given situation. Whenever the anniversary of the Manson Murders rolls around, for example, I’ll repost links to various related items I’ve written over the years. When the anniversary of a big event in my life comes around, I’ll repost links to what I’ve written about that topic. My older brother’s death is a good example.

Just as songs are meant to be replayed, so are blog posts. I remember reading an interview where Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard said you’re only doing half the job if you put out an album but don’t tour to support it. That’s how I feel about blog posts. If you have a message to get out, you have to stay on the road, so to speak.

Some songs become popular long after they were released. Bruce Springsteen’s “City of Ruin” took on new meaning right after 9-11 — years after it was first written. I once saw Springsteen talk about that song in an interview. He said sometimes songs go away but come back when you need them. I once wrote a post about Mister Rogers telling children about how the helpers always show up after big tragedies like 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina. Not many people read it at the time I wrote it, but whenever something terrible happens — the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in late 2012, for example — lots of people read that post.

Musicians always have songs in the collection that they’re not proud of, so they obviously don’t get played live. It’s the same for me. If I write what I think was a shitty post in hindsight, I don’t bring it up again. But I don’t delete them from the blog. I wrote ’em and choose to own ’em forever, for better or worse.

Then I go back into the studio and write some more.

Bill Playing Guitar

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The Most Important Skill to Deal with Life

I’m trying to teach my kids to be flexible. Like me, both are obsessive planners. Just yesterday, my older son was telling me he’d been planning out his entire school year right to the last day. My advice to him?

Don’t get too locked into those plans.

Mood music:

I’m not trying to discourage careful planning. It’s good to plan; it keeps us organized. I find daily list making to be enormously helpful. I’m also not encouraging them to lower their expectations of life. We need our expectations to motivate us toward great things.

What I am trying to tell them is that when you set your heart to lofty expectations, you risk huge letdowns when things don’t go as planned. Letdowns are important, too, because they humble us and help us to learn and move forward. But too many letdowns can beat a person down, and a lot of the time it isn’t necessary.

I’ve set myself up for those kinds of letdowns in the past, when schedule changes seemed like calamities.

When I was a kid, I’d throw epic tantrums if we went to the movies and the film we wanted to see was sold out. That’s typical childhood behavior, but it followed me to adulthood. I’d rage if a traffic jam threw off the timing of when I’d get from point A to B (I still hate that, but my reaction is more muted). If plans for a night out with friends or a quiet night at home suddenly changed, I’d sink into a depressive funk.

I used to get ridiculously dramatic when something failed to meet my expectations. I’d give in to my addictive impulses, mope for days and, perhaps worst of all, I’d let disappointment completely destroy the rest of the day, weekend, holiday, what have you.

As I get older, I’m better at going with the flow, though I admit I still succumb on occasion. I have my expectations out of life, but I always keep in mind that unforeseen obstacles will appear. That way, when it happens, my brain can more readily move on to a revised state of affairs.

If I miss an appointment because of traffic, I can always reschedule the appointment. If we don’t get to a movie on time, we can find plenty of other enjoyable activities to fill the time. If one work opportunity caves in, there are always other opportunities waiting around the corner.

It’s a lesson I hope to pass on to my sons.

Survival Book surrounded by a jungle

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Surviving the Persistence of Time

Here I am at another birthday. I’ve been telling people I couldn’t care less this year. It’s been a rough summer with too much upheaval, too much grief. There’s not much to celebrate. But the truth is, I’m grateful to be here.

Mood music:

That I’m now in my mid 40s is surprising — in my mind, at least.

When I was sick with Crohn’s Disease as a kid, I lost a lot of blood and developed several side ailments. When the OCD was burning out of control, I often felt I’d die young. I had a fatalistic view of things and just assumed I wasn’t long for this world and I didn’t care. I certainly did a lot to help the dying process along.

I also had a strange fear of current events and was convinced at one point that the world would burn in a nuclear holocaust before I hit 30.

When I was a prisoner to fear and anxiety, I really didn’t want to live long. I isolated myself.  I spent much of my 30s on the couch with a shattered back, escaping through TV. I was breathing, but I was as good as dead some of the time.

Despite all that, I’m still here. And while it’s been a rough year, particularly since March, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for my wife, my children and my career.

I’m grateful for my faith, which has certainly helped me. I’m grateful for the army of friends and extended family that has been there in times good and bad. And I’m grateful for the good luck I’ve had.

With that in mind, celebrating might be appropriate after all. I think I’ll give it a try.

Persistence of Time by Salvador Dali
“Persistence of Time,” by Salvador Dali
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The Boy Inside the Man: An Inspirational Story

This blog is my personal tale. That it helps some people because they can relate to it was an unexpected bonus that I try to live up to. As part of that I will share personal tales from other people that have taught me a lot. The latest example is “Being ‘Whole’ Isn’t My Goal” by Paul Nobles.

I don’t know Nobles personally, but the man captures things I relate to.

He writes of things that happened in childhood that confused him and fostered a lot of anger as a young man. He writes of an invisible hole inside him that he could never fill. He writes of how food filled the hole after he put down the drugs and alcohol. He writes of using exercise as a crutch.

At one point he says:

Inside me is a little boy sitting on a couch with police surrounding me asking if I’m alright and that answer is, ‘No, I am not alright.’ I will never be ALL RIGHT but I am working on that.

Everyone has a story. Please read his.

Survival Book in the Jungle