I can see clearly now
I’ve needed eyeglasses since first grade.
Throughout school, my relatively poor vision led me to sit in the front row whenever I could. I think that possibly contributed to my more active participation in class and frequent “teacher’s pet” stigma.
It also fed into my already nerdy nature, as eyeglasses helped me look the part.
To my surprise, over the years the rest of the world seems to have come up with the idea that glasses can actually be cool. Even people who didn’t need vision correction started buying them as fashion accessories. (Another marketing coup by Madison Avenue?)
I started musing about all this recently when my distance vision took another turn for the worse, and I found myself again struggling to read the eye chart and trying to figure out what frames looked best on me. (Not so easy to do when you can’t see much of anything from more than a few inches away.)
Now that I’m seeing clearly again, I got to wondering what life was like for people before modern glasses and contacts were invented.
I imagine tribal elders with aging eyes were no longer able to go out to the hunt or work the fields. They probably weren’t much help in providing security, either.
In short, back in the “old days,” as one’s vision declined, a person had a lot of free time to sit back in the village and think about things.
Perhaps those with a good memory and a repository of educational experiences began to share some good stories they recalled and to offer advice to the younger folk.
Such a person might also help judge disputes between people, or come up with pearls of wisdom. Maybe one’s close vision would permit whittling to carve useful tools or works of art.
But by and large, I imagine, life slowed down considerably when your eyesight declined, which freed your mind to shift into another gear.
Today, glasses and other modern technologies give us — regardless of age and vision deficit — the ability to see, read, hear and multitask anything and everything 24/7.
Lucky us! We never have to sit back and think anymore!
Instead, we are saturated with countless videos and websites, endlessly “streaming” entertainment, listening to podcasts while we exercise, drive or ostensibly talk with our spouse, and posting on social media intimate details of our days as they happen.
The pressure (compulsion?) to continually consume — and contribute to — today’s multiple media has become so overwhelming, in fact, that we may find ourselves tuning out any ideas or thoughts that contradict or question our instincts. We don’t feel we have the time to consider or evaluate difficult or unpleasant choices, or to listen to opposing views.
No, we are almost never able to sit alone for any length of time with our own thoughts anymore. As a result, we almost never get to be truly thoughtful.
Of course, a person can go “offline,” whenever they like. Have a “tech fast” or “social media sabbath.”
I do so at least weekly myself, and I find the quiet time rewarding and enriching. We all need some time to recharge before giving it another go.
But that’s not the kind of thing I’m suggesting here.
I’m talking about taking off one’s glasses or contacts, literally and figuratively. Letting oneself go “legally blind” for a while. (You folks with 20/20 uncorrected vision will have to come up with a different approach. Maybe smear some reading glasses with Vaseline.)
Give yourself time for your thoughts (and blood pressure) to settle, for the cacophony of daily life to dissipate. Let your vision go blurry — on purpose.
See where your thoughts take you and where you take them. Maybe ask yourself some of the bigger questions about life that you may not have pondered for a while.
What I’m hoping we find, given enough time to rethink some of the things we think we know, is that the world is less crystal clear and much more blurry than we thought.
It’s at that point that we’ll know we are finally seeing clearly again.
