Woke up at 07:44, on an ordinary vacation day, with nothing in particular planned. Since yesterday this household has been temporarily blessed with the presence of two tiny rats, that made the trip from Antwerp with their proud owner, Laura's friend Sanne. They'll be staying the week so at least me and Mel will not be entirely alone. But then, in a sense, I am never alone...

I have been aware of this presence, as far back as when I was the schoolboy who sorted and packed the magazines and newspapers back at school. My friday afternoon pastime, which I took pride in performing with excellence. The school yard had this little shed, where kids dumped the old papers they brought from home, and my task was to organize this into a neat stack of solidly sealed cardboard boxes, ready for transportation to the city recycler, who processed it further.

If anywhere on this earth, I got my passion for the written word right there, in that little shed. If it has not always been there in the first place, that is. I'd frequently interrupt my packing task, just to explore one of the treasures so unknowingly donated by my schoolmates. Certainly wasn't all reading material which would be typical for ten year old boys and girls, and often enough whole novels would find their way into my shed, be briefly diverted to my bed room, and returned to the recycle process upon complete examination of the cadence of words and letters found within their covers. Hey, I had to do something, and Nintendo was still very much a thing of the as yet undisclosed future....

So I read on, and it wasn't just the reading that sculpted my insatiable neural net. Back then, I could do virtually nothing if there wasn't some form of sound around. Homework needed a beat as much as my current self needs the virtual silence of random background noise, with its propensity to give your world a sudden twist...

Imagine yourself walking down a corridor, or anywhere really. Your vision clearly shows you where you are, but what happens when you suddenly close your eyes? You will most likely find, that the image your vision bestowed upon you, isn't just as suddenly gone.  I've often encountered that echo, formed by my other senses, that still told me reality was there, even if I didn't see it. Her presence was as tangible as when my eyes were open, possibly even more so because the main illusion of vision wore off. 

In my mind, this incredibly delightful image took shape, far outshining anything I could readily observe around me. It was the reason behind the All, the Order that made it all bareable because at least then I knew there was some reason behind it, not just undirected acts of cool or cruel. I wasn't ready to call it God or anything (still don't), but I definitely felt connected in one way or another. 

Just like August Rush clearly showed the power of music, I came to appreciate the relationship it has to words. Words became part of the ever growing pond of silence within me, that still aches to break that same silence every now and then, if even to hint at the one binding force that is there: Love.

If there ever was a more complex, more ambiguous word in language, I wouldn't know it. People commit the most heinous crimes, and yet when you dig deep enough, Love is always at the root of the problem, if only because they felt they did not get enough of it. Millions love soap operas, which are tremendously trumped up overstatements of Love conflicting with Love. For some it's love of wealth, others love their family, but the end results of all that clutter in the end only reflects that what sells, rules. Does it show that I wouldn't be caught dead following those multimedia shows? But still, I see how people get their sense of value from shows like that. Surely, isn't the realisation that you'd never have solved a love problem that way just as much a valid teaching point as the ones that show you ways to which you could very much adher?

Any example can have you agreeing to it or disagreeing. But nevertheless, any example is a choice, that you make to get where you are going. Even an apparent lack of choices presents you with a choice: you can go with it knowing that you are still en route, or even doubting whether you are.  You can rebel against it, frantically trying to find more clues that give you more of an idea of progress, and many more choices inbetween.

But know this: If it is infinite, and it is All connected, no amount of free will can make you avoid whatever it is you are trying to avoid, just as well as no amount of shameless blunders can make you miss whatever delightful situation you envision yourself to eventually be in!

Love your Infinity, and love to USE IT!

Dre'