The story
I build systems that aren't allowed to go down. Then I came off my e-bike in a collision, and the system that went down was me. Lying in a hospital bed, I kept thinking in the only language I really know. In identity and access management, you prove who you are with factors: something you know, something you have, something you are. The last one, the body, is the one you can't reset. That was the factor that broke. My mind was fine. My name was fine. My body just wouldn't accept the password.
Recovery turned out to be re-authentication. Physio is MFA with no shortcut. You do the reps, prove it, and tomorrow you get challenged again. In security we call that continuous evaluation: trust isn't granted once, it's checked every session. No one tells you that includes trusting your own legs again.
While I was out, the business kept running because I'd built it to hold, with agents working the night shift while I healed. That mattered to me. But the song isn't about being back to who I was. It's about being verified as who I am now. Welcome forward, not welcome back.
Key lines
- “Something you are — that's the factor that broke”
- “Physio's the MFA, she don't take the shortcut”
- “Every scar's an audit log: read it, don't reject it”
- “I'm not back to who I was. I'm authenticated as who I am now.”
Written by Nicholas Martin. Produced with Suno v6.