Make IT Real! by Sander R.B.E. Beals (good books to read for young adults TXT) 📕

I met Jolene on the train the other day, quite by incident, and very nicely. Somehow, I felt very, very connected to her, even though she turned out to be a person who had an uncanny ability to tell me exactly what kind of a person I am! Or maybe just because of that, because with her, my know-indicator was going crazy.

But despite the obvious connect, she kept her distance. We did exchange addresses, and over the next few weeks, she phoned me a couple of times, just to hear about how I was doing, and what was up in my life. Jolene felt very awesome, kinda like Selina, even though with her there was this barrier, which both of us kept intact: externally, she was the kind of person I'm not really attracted to, which was enhanced by the fact she tried convince me that our relationship was purely business (which is kind of a dirty word to me).

She claimed she needed help with her computer, and one day, I was invited to provide said help. I traveled there at the appointed hour, and walked the last few hundred meters from the bus to her home, or at least the address she gave me. It was in a well to do neighborhood, all privately owned homes. I rang the bell, and was invited in, only to find myself in a pigsty! I mean, she'd warned me her place was a mess, but I figured it to be like mine sometimes is, for lack of futuristic domestic droids. This however looked far worse, and my first instinct, which I immediately followed, was to offer her to help clean things up a bit. She wouldn't hear of it however, claiming she'd gotten me in there to help her along where the computer was concerned.

So I sat down, amidst a flurry of newspaper clippings, partially opened mail, and other 'messy' things. Nothing really gross, just this consistent wrapping of disorder that I could easily ignore in order to get my work done. She wanted a general cleanup of her computer, like I've done dozens of times for myself and others. Defrag, cleanup, remove unused software, install basic stuff needed to do proper work, you know the drill. So did I, or so I thought...

I'd seen she used Outlook for her mail, but also observed that her Word and Excel where complaining about needing an installer CD to be usable. I usually resort to public domain software wherever possible, and so gave her the option of having OpenOffice installed, instead of those office applications. She agreed, not realising like I should have, that her Outlook was part of the Microsoft Office I was aiming to replace. We chatted on, while she made us something to eat in a kitchen that to me would have been barely unacceptable as starting point for cooking activities.

It was a home-brewn soup, as she called it, quite tasty, but with too many unknown ingredients to be on my list of favorite dishes. I somewhat too ardently refused seconds, but we parted as friends. Then, after I'd gotten home, she called that her E-mail no longer worked. Realizing my colossal blunder I gladly took the blame, but was relieved she didn't expect me to get back on the train right that instance. I did offer to attempt a rescue using TeamViewer, so I could take over her system from home, but being a self-proclaimed digifobe, she declined that. She did get another friend to call me later, to dissolve the matter via phone.

But then there's the little incongruities that trigger you to the weirdness of the situation: though Jolene claimed she was afraid of computers, I counted no less than three systems in her home: the computer I needed to work on, an IBM Thinkpad carelessly lying around, and a Compaq DeskPro system in one of the bedrooms. Add to that the question she'd asked me about purchasing Val's old laptop, and I guessed myself in the twilight zone.

Speaking of zones: even though she and I were in the zone constantly, I was very near the edge of my comfort zone while in that place. To me, a home needs to be somewhat cleaner to be comfortable, but it was Jolene's home, so I kept abiding by her will, and tried not to disturb the flurry of newspaper clippings that so cozily surrounded me.

Yesterday, I mailed her to inquire if her friend's rescue operation had succeeded. I got back a mail, so it obviously had: she said she wasn't angry or disappointed, but told me not to mail, phone, or try to contact her otherwise.

Now I could mourn the loss of a friend, but this sounded way more like: “School's over, class dismissed!”

Final sync: I just found out Rush are on their “Time Machine Tour”! Weird how they are mentioned in various places in this Time Tale......

Saturday, April 17th, 2010, 11:59

I planned to go to fitness, but once there needed only one exercise to realize that today, exercise wasn't my cup of tea! So I admitted failure to Remy, the instructor, and checked out. We got to talking, and he mentioned being an avid Sci-Fi reader. So I agreed to send him a sneak preview just as soon as this chapter is done. Didn't even have the inspiration for it at that moment, but with the proper trust that is hardly a limitation.

Having to wait for Leann to finish her stretch of exercises, I occupied myself with Discoveries Raging Planet, the episode about volcanoes. Quite interesting, and at times they even had me thinking some of the shots of molten lava could easily have been made with the current state-of-the-art CGI software, because basically I couldn't tell the difference between the Hollywood movie named Armageddon, or this show. Now once you start doubting the reality of anything, you realize you have to base yourself on something to keep yourself standing. But as Einstein pointed out so eloquently: All is relative! So it is up to me, to figure out if I believe the headline news, but I know already I don't, at least not in the literal sense that most people do. Let's disect the show I was watching, which revisited various volcanic eruptions, and gave very detailed accounts of the victims of some of them. Now what would be needed to fake this? Weird question you think? Well, if I claim it to be unreal, wouldn't your first question be how I think it really happened? How I think it really happened will become clear later, but for now, I'd need a good CGI workstation, and a guy skilled at operating it, to produce believable high-definiton footage of the disaster area. Presumably, the whole civilized world saw Mt. St. Helens erupt, but how many of you have actually seen it live? What I'm aiming at, if you did have to lose your father in this disaster, it will always feel more real to you than to the 5.9 billion other Earthlings. Some will feel strongly about it, nevertheless, and those are for instance the news gatherers around the world. I'm not questioning their motives here however, because for me anybodies motives are beyond reproach. Those who aim to (mis)lead, do so for either selfish or selfless reasons, but since All is One, that is really all the same.....

So let's just say that with the advance of images came peoples ideas about telling stories with them. Just like ancient cavemen drew rock drawings that purportedly have images of UFOs on them, so people operating the first movie cameras soon figured out how to add fantastic twists to the stories they told. And voila, the movie industry was born.

Now, would it be likely that someone got the idea of taking a movie fantasy and passing it off as 'the real news'? It only takes one, right? I can't tell you who did it the first time, because as you know by now, I am not a proponent of linear time. But what I can tell you, is that it created a ripple effect across the globe like any event does!

And to the surroundings of such a ripple, comes the following challenge: do you believe the wave, or don't you? And actually it's not even so dualistic as that, because the moment you say you don't believe, you have a whole spectrum of fantasies to replace it with!

So actually, the encounter Sander and Selina had in the Akashic Records was much more like it: any place you find yourself, there you are. Numerous ways out, of which the first one is staying put. Then there are the opaque doors, of which you know you'll end up somewhere in the vicinity, able to get back here. And on top of that there's the unlimited supply of glass doors, leading to untold and fantastic alternatives, from which return seems far more unlikely. But, remember the escape clause of the Voice? “These portals can be redirected. You can get back to where you were in only one step.”

Believe me, you never ever leave Reality! You may leave 3D reality, but that is not what I'm talking about. That is the most restricted possible common denominator of true Reality, as I define it. You may agree with me there, or not. I simply call it as I see it, like we all do!

Well, most people don't. They admit far less as being reality, than they would consider their Reality. We all hide stuff from one another, afraid of what the other might think of it. I mean, my preference in a mate is for her to be younger than me. My kids then jokingly call me a pedophile, even though Selina is just about in her thirties by now. Still, I mention it to them, because they are dear to me. And I mention it here, because you are a faceless audience. But there's this whole group of people around me, who I'd rather not tell.....

But hey, if I want this novel to be the huge success I obviously hope it will be, then that group around me will most likely also know. Tough choices: do I stop myself from becoming famous, just to avoid one or two colleagues thinking badly of me? I don't think so....

But that ditch around you is there for every choice you make, every 'fact' you either believe or don't. That, my fellow readers is called the veil in New Age terms, and it is rapidly thinning. Left to its own devices, consensus reality will expand and expand, until it coincides with Reality..

Sunday, April 18th, 2010, 08:33

And in fact, there isn't just one veil. Unbiased observation of Reality will soon show you that Nature has a sort of check and double-check mechanism installed. If you put an intention out there, you are first of all presented with a somewhat neutral reflection of your wish, to inquire if that is what you want, by the good cop part of the Cosmos.

Depending on your answer, the bad cop will then inspire you with some of the possibly bad consequences of your intention, and again will ask you about your willingness to receive the just rewards. These two layer prevent unintended side effects, as far as it goes.

After that, the wheels are set in motion, but during the waiting for its arrival, the good cop and bad cop give you constant reminders in the form of syncs to further ascertain you are still inclined to accept your end of the deal.

That is where the whole God / Devil idea comes from: they are the original good cop and bad cop, seemingly out to put you behind bars, but in fact sizing