Busy as always, just stopped for a moment for lunch and a quick mailcheck. Of course nothing was there, because the isolation imposed remains in effect for anything not resembling spam, unsollicited E-mail, or stuff I can simply post on moorelife to deal with it....

Like the past few days, I was quite busy in a relaxed but very steady tempo. It's a busy time, because my boss and a colleague have to visit the Canon Expo next week, and need a number of machines to demonstrate our various programs to the visitors of this multi-day mega-event. And of course the machines don't always want to play nice....

Thus my cheerful mood came in quite handy when switching from one machine to the next in order to find a working combination. But around eleven, might even have been 11:11, an observation made me temporarily sit back and reflect: when I moused over a folder which I was working on, it briefly flashed the number 666 at me! It didn't even register at first, but after moving another few hundred pixels, my awareness finally got the message. Moused back over there, and now saw the tooltip come up consciously:  It merely reported the size of whatever was in that folder, at exactly 666MB. Remembering the numerical message a few days back, I praised myself for having put it down in the links section. Scrolled over there, and found the meaning of that 666:

666 - Your thoughts are out of balance right now, focused too much on the material world. This number sequence asks you to balance your thoughts between heaven and earth. Like the famous "Sermon on the Mount," the angels ask you to focus on spirit and service, and know your material and emotional needs will automatically be met as a result. 

Ah, come on!!! I just thought these last few days were wondrous, with me keeping up the faith like never before... Are you really telling me I should forget about work and focus on something better? What is it I should do then? Write? My boss is gonna love that, right before the expo!

But of course I have been overly focussing on material concerns: pushing hardware any way it will go in order to get the software to work. Strictly Cause and Effect, with no concern for the finer mechanisms like faith, synchronicity and the like. I figure that no matter what, that stuff will always keep happening, and doesn't require my signature to make a change here and there. Actually I'm quite taken with these latest changes, because they seem to have brightened up that sizeable chunk of my day that muggles call 'work'.

But with activities now claiming the full eight hours of my working day, and even more yesterday, there is less time left for other things. And with other things I mean just being aware of who needs what, and helping out if I'm in a position to do so. Like this morning on the train: an elderly lady asked me if this was the right train. It was, but I noticed her very havy bag, more suitable for a bulky Navy Seal than for a frail but still quite active female. As it turned out, our next train happened to be the same also, so I hoisted that duffel bag onto my shoulder when we got off the train at Arnhem, and lugged it all the way up and down the temporary and very steep stairway there. Gratitude was of course the reward for such a deed, but that is something I wave away for some reason....

Yeah, why DO I do that? Maybe because all the things I help people with come easy for me, at no extra cost. I just do the things I like, and already have enough joy in being able to do them. But since they are my highest excitements, why should anybody add to the reward which is already substantial in itself? In fact, why should people thank me for being so selfish I deprive them of that pleasure? It's a weird duality you know, because I'm actually depriving them of stuff they'd rather do without! and from that standpoint, their gratitude is quite natural. In fact, the only pleasure I do deprive them of a little, is being able to thank me for helping... 

Am I still clear, or did i just tie your neurons into a Gordian knot? Well, as I paused just now, I also noted the PC clock settling on 12:12. Similarly synchronistical, I also looked up that one:

1's and 2's such as 121 or 112 - Our thoughts are like seeds that are beginning to sprout. You may have already seen some evidence of the fruition of your desires. These are signs that things will and are growing in your aspired direction. Keep the faith! 

Now that one I can live with!!!  And I'm not the only one, because Laura is also particularly partial to 12 and uses 1212 frequently in her passwords or usernames. And yes, I have seen quite a few remarkable events find their way towards me in the past. Now there's a thing to be grateful for, but then comes the problem: who to be grateful to? To my boss for making me a Test Engineer? Truth is, he probably didn't even know it mattered that much to me, because I myself also just found out the first few days AFTER I'd gotten the job. But the desire, subconscious at least, played ever since my first few years on the software path. So maybe being grateful to the being who finally brought it to me may not be enough. Because it seems like there has been a massive campaign going to "Bring Dré his Dream Job!" And I have no idea at all who were involved. Some will say I only have myself to blame (or thank), but somehow that doesn't feel quite right yet. That doesn't mean I won't ever get used to seeing it that way, but for now, I'll just thank EveryOne, whether they were actually involved in it or not!

Love your Influence!

Dre'