New glasses make you think.
Fuzzy eyesight equals fuzzy thinking. When I look into the distance and everything sort of mushes out and fades to pastels, it’s awfully hard to concentrate.
Sharp vision is like a stream of data pouring through your eyes.
When I chose my new frames at the vision shop the woman working there felt like lecturing me. She said the lenses I would be getting were too big for glasses like these. I should really get something bigger, thicker, solid. Big lenses make big frames.
I said, thank you, that’s all right, I like these ones.
She persisted. I said, to myself, I have a doctorate. Glasses and I have an understanding. Don’t try to tell me how to choose them.
Outwardly I said, it’s all right, if I don’t like them I’ll get different ones.
She was distressed on my behalf.
Perhaps I my uncorrected vision was too blurry to properly pick glasses. It has been eight years, after all.
Maybe she was just trying to tell me that these glasses are ugly and she thought the argumenta bout weight or thickness might help. My old glasses were thick enough, weighty enough. Perhaps she just wanted to tell someone something.
At times like these I like to hide in the blur. Even with my new glasses—glasses that have already shown me details I hadn’t seen before—I have the option to blur the world anytime I choose. When I take them off I can sprawl in the world of haze. I can casually remove my glasses during a discussion, in a meeting, teasing the frames in a way that says I’m thinking awfully deep right now.
Actually it’s just me hiding. They can’t see me, either. Part of me believes this: I see the evidence that I can blur the world at will. Everything’s mutable.
There’s a downside to the blurry world: it’s lonely. You can’t recognize anyone, especially when moving. So you either say hi to everyone or to no one. Either way you have no friends.
But it’s a relief to know that no matter how clear my sight, my thoughts, my words, they are all just a movement away from blurring to nothing.
At least from what I can see.