User:EyeSerene.html

Who is EyeSerene?

A being breathing thoughtful breath; a traveller between life and death...

Why EyeSerene?

To truly appreciate the tapestry we walk though, we must see the colours and threads of that tapestry.

Seeing is both a passive and an active process—at its most basic, we simply pick up reflected photons that tell us about the physical shape of our surroundings. But of course it is much more than that. In those second-hand images we detect all the nuances of interaction that shape our lives. Love, hate, joy, sorrow, pleasure and pain—they are all somehow present, carried by the photons at a level beyond the merely physical.

So what is the carrier wave, the element that can propagate through a well-understood natural phenomena? What causes us to feel connected when we catch another's gaze? How can emotions be stirred by minute electrical signals from the receptor cells in our eyes?

In a word, I believe the answer is empathy.

Passing through the tapestry, we feel the texture of certain threads, and on a visceral level learn the way in which they affect us, for good or evil. Interactions are based on experience: on the processing of photons. As that processing occurs, seeing becomes active. Our memory of the threads we have touched colours the active processes taking place, and triggers appropriate (or inappropriate) reactions within us.

And serenity? Where does that come in? For me, serenity is the ability to appreciate both the passive and active components involved in seeing the tapestry I am travelling through. It is pausing to consider my response before reacting to a signal: learning to empathise. Naturally some signals provoke a response that can be fairly called involuntary, and the processing I do on the photons I pick up is coloured by the beliefs and principles I hold dear. All the same, I hold serenity as a worthy mark to aim for.

EyeSerene is the quest for self-knowledge; the capacity to touch others and be touched in return. It is inner calmness in the face of outer chaos. It finds hope in its failings, and mocks its own seriousness. It sees the world as it really is... and smiles.

Riiight... who is EyeSerene really?

Really? Okay then.

I currently live in South Wales, close to some of the best beaches in Britain. A few years ago I sidestepped out of the formal education system, where I taught Physics, Maths, ICT and Technology, into the world of private training. Now I work for a training company that, amongst other things, provides a full-time alternative to school for 14-16 year olds who don't attend regular schools for any of a number of reasons. We provide them with marketable skills in the form of welding, construction and vehicle maintenance programmes, along with classroom instruction in Maths, English and ICT. And along the way, we try to stitch together some of the tapestry's broken threads - sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

Aside to my professional life, I'm married to a long-suffering (and very wonderful, in case you're reading this) wiki-widow, and have managed to raise two more-or-less normal children. I have a longtime interest in the written word, and for my own enjoyment have penned a couple of novels. Who knows, maybe I'll even try to get them published one day...

Before going into teaching, I served in the Army. My degree was read at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, where I also indulged another lifelong passion of mine: military history. It is often the case that it takes a conflict to bring out both the best and worst in people—for any observer of human nature, it's a fascinating field.