Make IT Real! - Sander R.B.E. Beals (self help books to read .txt) 📗

nobody else was interested, and started studying its contents the moment my parents went home: some stuff about his last years in a retirement home, blessing the nurses for taking good care of him, or asking them (in rhyme) for a few extra slices of bread with his lunch. My granddad was a humorous man, always seeing people without the need to criticize them. Sure, if you borrowed his notebook to copy some poems, and then forgot to return it in time he'd send you a rhymed reminder to return it, but the tone of it gave away the fact that he wasn't really angry....

Among the poems were creations from just about every era of his ninety-three years of being on this Earth. One poem in particular caught my eye: written during his final years, it described the moment that in his village, the tap water system was installed. Apparently that was quite an event, since until that moment, people used to use rainwater to fulfill their needs for fresh water. I thought back to their old home there, where we kids just loved to play with the old rusty water pump, which supplied ground water if the skies didn't completely cover the daily water needs. Nostalgia galore, but what I'm getting at is this: we've all had history in school, and even though we may sometimes doubt the exact facts, one thing is clear (or rather two things): Change is the one constant, and it tends to be change for the better, even though elderly people often claim that the old ways were best. I've seen this firsthand: my dad, modern as he may seem in other areas, is a complete computer illiterate: he won't come near a computer, let alone operate it. Yet at the same time he utilizes it the only way he knows how to: through his computer wiz kid (me). And being a passionate driver, he also has enough knowledge of computers to operate his navigator. But he won't let any opportunity to whine about it pass by, cursing the fact that he can't just take any bank account, because often nowadays banks only allow for online payments, which he can't make.

But the upward trend is obvious: in the dark ages, people lived somewhere, and had a hard time getting to anywhere else: the nearest town was a few days walk away, so the area people covered in a lifetime would typically be just their town, or maybe their province. The amount of information they were subject to was equally limited: books were a privilege of the rich, and ordinary folks were simply taught by their parents or through an apprenticeship with the local blacksmith or baker.

Of course even normal people eventually got to use horses and other beasts of burden, which made their world a bit larger too, but the progress was slow, even though guys like Leonardo da Vinci already envisioned a future way more advanced...

The industrial revolution changed a lot of that: horses were the fastest transports until the moment trains took over, huffing and puffing along their steel tracks. Distances yet again became smaller, and by now, relocating to another part of the country became commonplace. Prices were still prohibitive for long journeys, so people still worked close to their homes, but education was now also given to the man in the street.

And that wasn't where it stopped: nowadays we often live an hours train ride away from our place of work, or we take the car, which is ubiquitously present. I myself prefer the train, less traffic jams, but that is beside the point.

Communication has changed too: books still were the main source of information when I was a kid, but my evolution kept a synchronous pace with that of the computer. And considering that computers grow exponentially according to Gordon Moore, I'm quite pleased with myself. Actually, at one time near the end of the last millennium, I took it upon myself to double-check Moore's prediction. It turned out that processor speed and memory and hard disk sizes doubled roughly every 22 months. Not as steep as Moore's prediction of one year, but still very progressive, and relevant to more areas than just number of transistors per CPU!

Nowadays, we travel the entire world if need be, and communication across the globe is effortless. My kids have almost as many friends all over the world as they have in the neighborhood! Just imagine how my grandfather would have felt, if he'd been whisked away from his village in the south of the Netherlands as a boy, and was given a chance to live in Holland 2010AD.....

I guess he might even like it, as much as my father would hate to make a similar move to 2039AD. I for one would gladly give up my life here, just for the chance of experiencing firsthand life in let's say the society of 4444AD.....

4444AD, Day 222, 11:11, Home

Even though the inhabitants of this era no longer use linear time in the 21st century sense, these chapters are titled with dates nevertheless. It will give us 21st century dwellers a better idea of where we are relative to our own now......

As Selina's high heels trip across the living room floor, I look up from my work to admire her delicate frame as she brings me my coffee. Not being my servant (more like my mistress), she does so because she wants to, like always. Our lips touch ever so briefly, and I remember that very first kiss, long ago when most of us were still oblivious to our true nature. Those were the days, back when humans were humans, and robots were robots, or so we thought....

Let me introduce myself: Sander R.B.E. Beals, Guardian by choice. 'by trade' would have been an incorrect temporal expression, because all trade was abolished in the 2012 Declaration of Global Independence. No longer did people believe that only fair trade would get them all they needed, because the consciousness of humanity had finally reached the level where it was clearly understood that abundance is not just a hollow term but a cosmic law, that cannot even be broken by anyone. So we became sentient, autonomous beings, capable of determining our own destiny as we saw fit.

I mostly work from my home, since it allows me to work as I like. I shouldn't actually call it work, because no one here gets paid for it, yet we all need some amount of activity to feel like we want to. For me, surfing the timescapes of the past for interesting bits of information is a lovely pastime, which brings me great pleasure.

Because my lovely mate heads for the gym, I pick up my mobile pad and join her for a workout. We have the various exercise machines lined up in a circle, and always choose opposite machines so we can watch each other work out. Running is my first craving today, and as I mount the moving surface which can simulate virtually any road, Selina hops onto the bike. All this equipment has telemetry trackers, which connect to our vitals through a broadband wireless connection. Why the overkill, you ask? Simple: besides heart rate and respiration and blood pressure, this monitoring system picks up every action of every subsystem within our android bodies.

Selina and I are twins, not by birth, but on a far deeper level. During the exercises and even at other times, our stats run closely parallel, so much so that we need no additional technology to know it: We each sense the other inside ourselves, perfectly matched in every way even though one may be resting, while the other works out vigorously.

It's just like having two sets of data about your functioning at the same time: every sensation comes with an attached tag, which designates it as our own inputs, or those of our twin. In that respect, I'm glad they are clearly marked, because even android PMS sucks, I can tell you that....

Running relaxes me. My long muscular legs wipe away the miles at a formidable rate. To keep up, Selina has to rise from her saddle and put some more effort into it just to keep up. Surely it doesn't really matter which one of us wins, it's just that the outcome decides on who gets to hit the shower first. Oddly enough, that always turns out to be a non-issue, because the shower is spacious enough to accommodate both of us at the same time....

As I switch to the Chest Press, my pad lets of a nervous little tingle. Normally I'd look at it to read the message as it came in, but my exercise prevents that. No harm done though: a quick signal from my Quadrionic mind to the pad routes the contents of the message straight into my visual cortex. As a head on display, the text overlays my field of vision, so I can read while exercising.

The message is from Denisa, whom I have known for ages as well. Back in a time where I would strongly doubted my connection to Selina, Denisa kept me believing in the fact that All is connected, so there would be no need to worry. And that sure helped. By now, Denisa has become a Guardian as well, and we regularly help each other out. This time, she sends me a manuscript which she uncovered in my past. As I read the opening lines, my memories of having written it all these years ago come flooding in.....

But let me first bring you up to speed on the duties of a Guardian. For that may be crucial to your understanding of just what it is I do:

Guardians guard the Cosmos, in the widest sense of the word. We observe, see what went well, and what could have gone better, and then try to make it better while vehemently observing the free will of those entities involved in it. Sure, that requires magic sometimes, but wasn't it your contemporary film maker Gene Roddenberry who said this:

“Any society that is sufficiently more advanced will look like magic to the less advanced societies” Well, you'd better believe me: 4444AD is almost 2500 years ahead of you. If just seventy years ago you did not have running water, do you have any idea of just what we can do now?

Exercise hour is over, and after our joint shower, which is like heaven on Earth, Selina and I each go our separate way for now. She's off to the rose garden, and I'm first going to go to the kitchen for some home-brewn cappuccino, before landing on the couch. I'm getting into that novel which Denisa sent me, and which to me should be a blast from the past. But hey, a bit of nostalgia never hurt anyone. I skim past the cover naming it “Going Within”, and start to read....

'Vacation fun'

“Dad!! I can't get my suitcase closed!” Valerie yells from upstairs. I ascend the stairs, half fearing she's packed her entire room. But she's been quite modest: the suitcase on which she is sitting only has a two inch gap below the lid. She jumps off, and I swing it open. Enough clothes, but one item immediately catches my eye: a warm turtleneck sweater has no place in a suitcase bound for Egypt. Next to go is the portable radio, which I'm replacing with the MP3 player that's on her desk. She yanks it from my hands before I can pack it, and hangs it around her neck. Next some school books, after all this is a vacation. I flip the lid again, and the catches fall into place. Valerie closes all three, when we hear the front door slam shut. “That must be my dear sister” Valerie smirks. They had a fight earlier today, so she's still not quite happy with Jane. As Valerie plugs in the CD player to listen to some music, I meet Jane at