Protecting

… is hard, because it’s parenting.

And with parenting, you have to clean up after your kids, even when they make large messes, and you’re tired, and you’re at your wit’s end.

The impulse to protect can be dangerous when misdirected. Or even wielded by adversaries.

Think misapplications – those prepared to protect everything are bound to run out of resources. (Perhaps threat modeling / allocating resources under scarcity is useful here?)

Thus one must intellectualize / disconnect from the emotion of protecting, if they hope to protect at scale.

Social media allows for exposure to more causes worth protecting. But those who try to protect everything, probably hit the “protecting too many things” failure mode.

I’ve always strived to protect the things I’ve created / built. Groups of people, typically my “children”. Maybe this comes from the love of my parents.

But I’ve also hit the failure modes. Protecting against an adversary who’s not in the room, hurting those who care about me.

Reflecting now, on how to most effectively protect the things I love.