Undercover CIA: Why Cybersecurity Might Be the Model Agent for Friendship

Either I have been working too much, or cybersecurity is a lot like friendship. Hear me out. In both friendship and cyber, there are vectors of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability and each can be used as indicator of relational health.

Depth and vulnerability (which I will collectively cloak in the blanket of "confidentiality") are tough hurdles to jump for me (and maybe for you too) in advancing and maturing friendship. Nothing shared leads to nothing formed, bonded, and ultimately structured. In today's day and age of the loneliness epidemic, there is renewed and heightened focus on the third contributing factor: availability. And while availability is crucial in addressing loneliness, it is integrity that ensures these connections are genuine and enduring. Unfortunately, we are all too often busy and too glued to other "important" matters, but we are and always will be relational creatures; we're wired for healthy and sustained connection and attachment.

What if integrity is the overlooked tenet for sustaining genuine and lasting connections?

We All Need Our People, but Who Do We Need?

At every stage and in every season, we need people - especially when we are hurt, hungry, harried, or haggard. But, like aimless wandering in the absence of given direction, will any connection do? Will depth with others needing depth suffice? I'd argue not. I'd submit that is where the integrity lies anchored, almost-invisibly. Integrity begs the question, "how does your version of the world accord with reality?" I, you, we, want people to be willing to be with us, "to get us," to be at home, at rest and not be anxious, to be in likeminded presence, identify with us, to not have to perform, but to simply be (ideally, there would be reciprocity here). But, at the end of the day, friendship needs to calibrate to truth else it cannot stand and crumbles.

The Light of Integrity in Fellowship; Even in Community, Each Steps into the Light (Generated with AI)

In recent everyday life, I have observed sources of truth in unexpected interactions. I recently had a friend pitch the following, "I am here (availability) for your problems. And I am here for the personal drama (confidentiality)." Even though there were no personal details directly described the moment, I relished. I had another buddy voluntarily show up (availability)- ready to transport me to the airport, debrief (confidentiality) from a multi-leg trip between workday meetings, and had breakfast ready to-go for me upon arrival. What grounded both of these acts in integrity was that both were done in knowledge and model of Christ, the ultimate reality. Both examples show the foundational framework of friendship in-motion. Like the cost of discipleship, the entry point for friendship is higher than we might surmise. But, how do we continuously gauge integrity?

Integrity: Anchoring Friendship in Truth

Here are some imperfect questions I have been mulling over you might consider in your closest friendships:

• What do you observe about interactions?

  • Over time?

  • Where is there joy in them? Why?

  • Where is there friction? Why?

• Where are interactions centered?

  • What is the ultimate source-of-truth?

  • Is there one?

  
  

• Where is integrity sacrificed or overshadowed?

  • Confused with at the expense of confidentiality and availability?

  • How might an external perspective reveal gaps in confidentiality or availability?

At the end of the day, friendship is an intentional relationship built on depth and support across time. Have you experienced a moment when someone showed up for you CIA style? Join the #QuedUpConversation What would you add?