Many, many years ago I read a book by Rollo May where he was describing the eyes of the Greeks in antiquity as wide open, stretching out in astonishment towards life and world. I smiled ironically when I read this — and at the same time I felt some sort of transition … a door opened, and for some reason remained open. And I have not forgotten those lines.

Now when I have engaged myself in identity and internet questions, the Greek eyes jump forward again. There is a tension in my own eyes, and in this tension I can feel a higher voltage. This voltage is for me connected with an attempt to understand and to sense the internet as something organic. Something infused with organic life force. Which for me implies that technology also is of the same order. This feels thrilling, but also unsafe.

It feels safer, but again less thrilling, to be in accord with for example Jacques Ellul, who was convinced that activated technology, which he called technique, is on many levels a threat to society, and to a decent equilibrium in society.

Now, what my eyes really see, with some encouragement from Steven’s/ Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, and, with even more wonder — is that both of these ‘positions’ are true. What happens when I, including my eyes, jump up to this meta-level?

My intuition tells me that it feels like in childhood, the eye tension feels like emanating from my childhood. There is a memory of the 3-4 year old girl looking into the mirror at her own eyes. I tried out my mother’s hats, and I put on her lipstick with far too broad strokes. But most of all I remember looking at my eyes. They were steadily looking back at me. I have a very distinct memory that I was of the clear opinion that these eyes were the most common one’s there were in the whole world.

Reflecting on this now, I am surprised; what could the little girl possibly know and feel about something that she thought of and sensed as ‘the whole world’? And, how did she understand the word ‘common’? When I search to find the accurate connotation matching my memory-taste of this ‘common,’ it dawns upon me that the word for me then stood for a profound perennial recognition, which at that point was quite natural.

And now, far beyond childhood — I want to stretch out for this sense of ‘natural,’ but it takes hard work and struggle to get it closer. My eyes, the tension in my eyes, I will keep to that. Here is a dimensional gateway, a meeting place calling back gifts from this young age, getting them fused with what I have now. Might there be an opening of this sort in the very tension? In that case, lost and sacrificed childhood and youth, taking shape for example in our dreams, can perhaps be collected here…

T.E.K.