Welcome to author Ian Lenathen!
Ian Lenathen was born in Scotland and emigrated to Canada as a seven-year-old.
Lenathen is an intelligent and a curious thinker, capable of birthing original and critical thought.
Ian is the proud father of
two boys and four grandchildren, all living in Canada
He is also a long-distance swimmer – a computer and internet technology exemplar, an intuitive empath, a poet, and a seeker of compassionate and empathetic contemporaries.
As a world traveler, Ian lived
in Scotland, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Miami and
has worked and played in forty-two countries. He gained many loved and connected friends on
our shared planet. Lenathen includes the knowledge, understanding, and tolerance
gained through his travels within the location, theme, and plot of his writing.
Ian completed over eight
hundred open water scuba dives and is a certified rescue diver – with published
underwater photography. He loves swimming with sharks.
Ian’s hope? - To die young
at an old age.
There is always more to do
if we choose to do it.
https://www.ianlenathen-author.com - Author website.
Tell us about your life outside of writing.
My life resonates with art and
science.
I left Ryerson University in my
second year after being offered a job with a computer company back in the late
sixties. I moved from servicing and teaching floor top computers to an
engineering technical specifications writing position, then onto an Electrical
Engineer (non-degreed) function with a large scale computer design company, privileged
to be a member of the top computer design team in the world. I also wrote poetry – intuitively knowing all
successful life genres, in the final analysis, are poetic. The beauty of science,
mathematics, and all portals of the arts are entangled and woven within the
thread of imagination, compassion, and empathy. Thus, writing is the expression
within my life – never really existing on the outside.
But – in saying that, I have been
busy – working as an expert on computer networks, the internet, and the
telephone network at the design level.
My professional life allowed me to
visit over 40 countries, every province in Canada, and nearly every state in
the USA.
I lived in Turks and Caicos for ten
years. From that location, I designed
the network topology to attach eleven island nations and fifteen million people
to the internet within the Caribbean Basin, writing and executing the first
business plan enabling a telephone company to become an internet service
provider.
I have left the world of high
technology - now focused on writing, writing, writing.
The new question you could ask is: ‘Do you have a life outside of writing?’
Do you have a work in progress?
Yes,
my work in progress is: ‘Thoughts and Feelings – Time and Space (Musings of a free
thinker).’ A book of poetry and short stories. This work is an anthology of truths
I have experienced – not as a memoir – but more as a book of events and consequences.
The short stories are non-fictional, laying out self-evident proofs. – The
poetry is abstract – some in rhyme, some in prose – with original photographs
sprinkled in the mix.
What was the most difficult section/piece you ever wrote? What made it difficult?
‘The
Alters - We live in many mansions’ is a book that uses the current base of knowledge
regarding quantum physics, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, computer
science, and religion using the story of Adam and Sarah as the communal point
of interest carrier.
The
most significant difficulty is putting these advanced concepts into a simple
and exciting story while keeping the readers interested. I sometimes assumed my
readers knew as much about these topics as I do. Not so. I have been studying
and researching these topics for most of my life.
As
Stephen King says, ‘Sometimes we have to kill our darlings.’ I had to re-write
and sometimes eliminate a paragraph or two, which were darlings to me – but a
yawner for most readers. Editing out your darlings is a difficult thing to do.
If
we understand a complicated subject, we should be able to explain it to a child.
Writers have a responsibility to our readers regarding the understandability
and readability of our plots and characters.
Every
chapter in The Alters begins with a poem. Poetry adds a higher layer of abstraction,
which must complement and support the tenets of the story. Linking abstraction
and reality can be difficult but is worth the effort – adding congruence within
the ethereal and aesthetic flow of the story.
What sort of research do you do for your work?
First
of all, I do believe evolution is still happening in unexpected ways.
Over
the past twenty-five years, I have used the internet as a credible source of research.
Every subject is available for a shallow or deep dive.
I
believe in subliminal learning too.
Over
the past 20 years, I have listened to lectures, audiobooks, arguments, and
discussions on many subjects, including; classical and quantum science, religions,
philosophy, economy, computer science, Artificial Intelligence, deep learning,
neuro networks, and literature.
I
do this every night and over the past twenty years – listening to an average of
6 hours per night, which equals about 43,800 hours of subliminal high-quality
deep subject learning. I also read books and academic papers on various subjects.
For
example, in the knowledge silo of Neuroscience, I have queued up lectures from
the top professors at universities worldwide. My favourite in this field is Dr.
Robert Morris Sapolsky, an American professor with a Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology
from Harvard – currently teaching biology, neurology, and neurological science
at Stanford University. Lectures are available on the internet. Professor Sapolsky also offers a book - Behave (The biology of humans at our best and worst)
- a must-read if you are researching this field. Behave is a large meal,
but it is delicious.
In
the area of Quantum Science, my research includes books, journals, podcasts, papers,
and lectures providing access to the incredible life work of Albert Einstein, Niel Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger, Hugh Everett,
Sean Caroll, David Ting, Max Planck, Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson, Manolis
Kellis, and more.
For
other subjects like Philosophy, Religion, Computer Science, and Literature, I
read and subliminally learn from experts, every night of my life. This method
of learning does not help in cultivating a blossoming romance with those who
would like to spoon with me. Alas, such is the lonely life of a research-intensive
writer.
The
story of Adam and Sarah in The Alters puts forth the idea that all knowledge is
one knowledge – all learning is one learning. All are intelligently entangled.
What books and authors do you read for pleasure?
Most
reading is for pleasure, no? In my early days, I enjoyed the good against evil
books – like The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, enjoying the part where Gandolf the
Grey turns into Gandolf the White --- as Bilbo Baggins jostles with Gollum – a low
and distressed fallen Hobbit. The following trilogy did not interest me as much;
it diminished the true Tolkien hero (to
me) – Bilbo.
I
became interested in the collected works of Oscar Wilde after reading The
Picture of Dorian Gray – where Dorian sold his soul to remain young and
beautiful – against the natural flow of aging and entropy. On a trip to Paris,
I stopped off at Père Lachaise Cemetery, then gave a reading from ‘The Ballad
of Reading Goal’ by Oscar’s grave – receiving a sitting ovation from a small
crowd which formed as I was reading.
I
found ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by ‘you know who’ – a pleasure to read. Then I
read his other works too. I traveled to Havana and toasted ‘Papa’ with a Cuba Libre
by his statue in one of his favorite bars – El Florida, and spent time at his
choice hotel – Hotel Albos Mudos.
In
my early teens, searching for meaning, I devoured the journals surrounding the
life and deeds of Edgar Cayce. I drove to Virginia Beach and spent two weeks
buried in the archives of his work at the Association for Research and Enlightenment.
After
reading the bible a few times, I traveled to Ephesus to visit the House of Mary
and the Basilica of St. John (who wrote Revelations on the Island of Patmos).
While sitting in Mary’s church at the top of the corkscrew road hill – I found
this to be one of the serenest places I had ever experienced. I drove down the
hill towards St. John’s Basilica and had the padlocked door opened by a
stranger walking by. I sat one meter from the red clay grave where the body of
John once rested and spent time reflecting on the book of Revelations. Though I
have become less religious over the years, I am deeply spiritual; my religion
is love. My faith bathes in kindness. The literature of the bible offers a further
layer of understanding – I did enjoy and ponder the words of John, the apostle
in Revelations, and am grateful for the stranger who opened the padlocked gate
– allowing me to enter that sacred space.
The
rest of my authors are mostly science-based.
Books on Einstein, String Theory, Quantum entanglement, Deep Learning, Artificial General Intelligence, Neuroscience, Psychology, Philosophy, Endocrinology, and more take my time and satisfy my thirst.
Was there a person who encouraged you to write?
Mrs.
Gallagher was the first – she was my grade nine English teacher. As she handed
out a graded writing assignment, she told the class we had done well, but she
wanted us to hear one piece which received an A+. I wrote it. After the class, she told me I had a gift and
could be anything I wanted to be – but she said – no matter what you do, always
be a writer too. She was a significant influence. Kindness matters.
Thank you, Mrs. Gallagher!
THE ALTERS (We live in many mansions) – SYNOPSIS
Genre
– Visionary Fiction
The story of Sarah and Adam - spiritually entangled, born at the same time, in Baton Rouge and Toronto.
Sarah, an empath savant - Adam, a quantum savant - both fully functional autistic-like and gifted human beings.
The characters in the story
include psychopaths and saints. Nasty and nice together.
Some situations are dark,
but in the final events and instances of our four-dimensional experience, light
is always a possible consequence.
We have the choice to
transcend - the option to choose kindness first, in all situations.
The Alters is meant for mature
readers. The story includes sexual encounters since we are sexual beings too,
reflecting our communal experience - cruel and dominating sex and loving and
soul-satisfying sex. We salute the needs of our lower three glands.
The Alters moves from our
Darwinian construct, defined in four dimensions, embracing the compassion and
empathy of our higher aspirations.
Your perspective alters as
we move from our Darwinian prison defined in four dimensions, towards kinder
and higher consequences.
We possess the ability to
escape these chains of blue skies if we desire to do so.
It takes a leap of faith
and an altered perspective of thought, time, and space.
‘Space is stitched together with the
thread of quantum entanglement.’ P(x) =
|ψ(x)|². Multiple instance reality. This tenet is the basis of The Alters,
wrapped into a humankind story - no math required. Take a read - you may be
surprised and enjoy it as a page-turner, a thought-invoker, even an interesting
and fast-moving, slow, soothing wine companion.
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