cataracts and enchantment
One of my colleagues recently shared with me his frustrations of trying to get new glasses that didn't give him a headache. After he went back to his eye doc and they retested everything, he made the choice that i didn't and continued with the original glasses as prescribed. He said after persevering for a few days he didn't have a headache any more, though they still felt a bit odd.
Well it's been 5 months now since i opted to switch out the prescribed lenses for a different set without astigmatism correction and i'm still not seeing properly out of my right eye and it's driving me nuts. So i bit the bullet and decided to go to the Rich People Eye Doctor that recently opened in the same building as our office.
I have cataracts.
She said they're not bad, but they're worse in my right eye than my left, which is why i keep feeling like i can't see clearly out of my right eye. I asked what they can do to fix it, and she said nothing. She said it will just keep getting worse. At some point they can try surgery to try improve things, but she said it's too early to bother right now. So what then? I just have to live with the fact that i have blurred vision in one eye, regardless of prescription.
On one hand, it was a relief to hear that i'm not crazy. There really is something wrong with my eye. I'm not imagining it. On the other hand, my body is falling apart. Booze, smokes, spending time out in the sun, doesn't matter i stayed fit and ate vegan, it all caught up to me. Fuck getting old.
I remember when i was a child i read one of those short stories that is supposed to give comfort to children living with some kind of disability. In this case the story was about a person who had very poor eyesight and had to wear glasses, but she described her disability as some kind of superpower, because she got to see all the beautiful glows and auras in the world that those with perfect eyesight never get to experience. I've forgotten a lot of stuff that happened when i was a kid, but somehow that story stuck with me.
I think it's because pretty much my whole life, when i go to bed at night and when i wake up in the morning i can't fucking see shit. It used to give me anxiety - how could i defend myself from an attacker who came in my sleep? I wouldn't even be able to see them, much less fight them! But then i'd think about that story and try to comfort myself with the idea that i could see something they couldn't. I could see the world where everything was a smudged blur, an impressionist's painting! My secret power - if i was ever in real danger - would allow me to escape whatever horrors a person without vision impairment would have burned into their memories! I'm actually fortunate! A gifted child!
Yeah, no. It's bullshit. Having a body that is not working at its optimum capacity is not a superpower. It's a disability, and it fucking sucks. There's no mystique there. There's no "wow but your other senses are heightened..." Maybe i would feel differently if i had a more serious disability, one that could not be mostly corrected by eyeglasses, but probably not.
I read a comment thread recently on one of those fluff pieces where some thought leader was still coming down from their latest LSD trip and decided to inform the world that they shouldn't get disenchanted, that they should take the time to see things the way children do, that there's still magic out there, if you choose to see it. It's a very trite, privileged take that i usually scroll past, but one snarky comment caught my eye by saying that adults re-enchant the world by believing in conspiracy theories. And i laughed out loud because it's so true.
Some people appear fixated on explaining everything that happens around them as some deep, esoteric process that only those blessed with secret knowledge can understand. (Which, of course, includes them.) Never mind how implausible their explanations are, or how many actual experts in the field disagree, they have already decided to believe and nothing will stop them. They want so desperately for there to be meaning.
Recently someone online brought up the hieroglyphics of travelers - "hobo signs", the clandestine symbology that allowed transient people to communicate between themselves, using a language no regular people could understand. Cool, right? It's almost certainly nonsense. Not only has it been debunked by historians of graffiti - there is no evidence of so-called hobo signs anywhere outside of staged photos for the tabloid media, whereas there is plenty of evidence of actual hobo graffiti (monikers) going back over a century - but even present-day travelers consider it ridiculous, because why would you write a secret code saying that a house has an aggressive dog when anybody who has ever walked past a house with an aggressive dog knows quite well that you will hear it long before you could ever see a secret code written on a fence post. And, like. Travelers talk to each other. In person. That's how they decide where to go in the first place! But the true believers will hear nothing of it. There's no evidence left because obviously it was a secret so it was deliberately written in chalk, so it would get washed away by the rain! (Don't think that through too long.) There's no evidence because it was the intangible cultural heritage of the most oppressed and downtrodden members of society, so of course the media elites would never write about it. (Never mind the fact that the whole thing appears to be a confabulation used to sell newspapers to people who were terrified of the fearsome itinerants camped out in their neighborhoods.) Naturally a handful of enterprising grifters decided to use people's stereotypes of them as part of their gimmick. Kayfabe is dead? No way! People want to believe! I'll draw you a squiggly line for a dollar! The ungodly glyphs vagrants don't want you to know about: exposed!
Hold on while i throw some sneakers up on the power lines to communicate with a rival gang.
Anyway, my body is falling apart, i'm going blind, and the world is not fucking full of signs and portents. This isn't a super power, and i'm not able to see things other people cannot. This hardship isn't going to make me a better person. There is no new perspective or hidden knowledge to discover. I feel like i have spent the last 2-3 years punched hard in the eye, and turns out that what it felt like all along is pretty much exactly what it is.
The only reason it all feels so dreamlike is because... can't fucking see clearly. And that's just the way it's gonna be from now on. Who needs drugs anyway, eh?
PS: I still think the world is full of joy and wonder. I'm not a total grump, i'm just tired and dying.
Well it's been 5 months now since i opted to switch out the prescribed lenses for a different set without astigmatism correction and i'm still not seeing properly out of my right eye and it's driving me nuts. So i bit the bullet and decided to go to the Rich People Eye Doctor that recently opened in the same building as our office.
I have cataracts.
She said they're not bad, but they're worse in my right eye than my left, which is why i keep feeling like i can't see clearly out of my right eye. I asked what they can do to fix it, and she said nothing. She said it will just keep getting worse. At some point they can try surgery to try improve things, but she said it's too early to bother right now. So what then? I just have to live with the fact that i have blurred vision in one eye, regardless of prescription.
On one hand, it was a relief to hear that i'm not crazy. There really is something wrong with my eye. I'm not imagining it. On the other hand, my body is falling apart. Booze, smokes, spending time out in the sun, doesn't matter i stayed fit and ate vegan, it all caught up to me. Fuck getting old.
I remember when i was a child i read one of those short stories that is supposed to give comfort to children living with some kind of disability. In this case the story was about a person who had very poor eyesight and had to wear glasses, but she described her disability as some kind of superpower, because she got to see all the beautiful glows and auras in the world that those with perfect eyesight never get to experience. I've forgotten a lot of stuff that happened when i was a kid, but somehow that story stuck with me.
I think it's because pretty much my whole life, when i go to bed at night and when i wake up in the morning i can't fucking see shit. It used to give me anxiety - how could i defend myself from an attacker who came in my sleep? I wouldn't even be able to see them, much less fight them! But then i'd think about that story and try to comfort myself with the idea that i could see something they couldn't. I could see the world where everything was a smudged blur, an impressionist's painting! My secret power - if i was ever in real danger - would allow me to escape whatever horrors a person without vision impairment would have burned into their memories! I'm actually fortunate! A gifted child!
Yeah, no. It's bullshit. Having a body that is not working at its optimum capacity is not a superpower. It's a disability, and it fucking sucks. There's no mystique there. There's no "wow but your other senses are heightened..." Maybe i would feel differently if i had a more serious disability, one that could not be mostly corrected by eyeglasses, but probably not.
I read a comment thread recently on one of those fluff pieces where some thought leader was still coming down from their latest LSD trip and decided to inform the world that they shouldn't get disenchanted, that they should take the time to see things the way children do, that there's still magic out there, if you choose to see it. It's a very trite, privileged take that i usually scroll past, but one snarky comment caught my eye by saying that adults re-enchant the world by believing in conspiracy theories. And i laughed out loud because it's so true.
Some people appear fixated on explaining everything that happens around them as some deep, esoteric process that only those blessed with secret knowledge can understand. (Which, of course, includes them.) Never mind how implausible their explanations are, or how many actual experts in the field disagree, they have already decided to believe and nothing will stop them. They want so desperately for there to be meaning.
Recently someone online brought up the hieroglyphics of travelers - "hobo signs", the clandestine symbology that allowed transient people to communicate between themselves, using a language no regular people could understand. Cool, right? It's almost certainly nonsense. Not only has it been debunked by historians of graffiti - there is no evidence of so-called hobo signs anywhere outside of staged photos for the tabloid media, whereas there is plenty of evidence of actual hobo graffiti (monikers) going back over a century - but even present-day travelers consider it ridiculous, because why would you write a secret code saying that a house has an aggressive dog when anybody who has ever walked past a house with an aggressive dog knows quite well that you will hear it long before you could ever see a secret code written on a fence post. And, like. Travelers talk to each other. In person. That's how they decide where to go in the first place! But the true believers will hear nothing of it. There's no evidence left because obviously it was a secret so it was deliberately written in chalk, so it would get washed away by the rain! (Don't think that through too long.) There's no evidence because it was the intangible cultural heritage of the most oppressed and downtrodden members of society, so of course the media elites would never write about it. (Never mind the fact that the whole thing appears to be a confabulation used to sell newspapers to people who were terrified of the fearsome itinerants camped out in their neighborhoods.) Naturally a handful of enterprising grifters decided to use people's stereotypes of them as part of their gimmick. Kayfabe is dead? No way! People want to believe! I'll draw you a squiggly line for a dollar! The ungodly glyphs vagrants don't want you to know about: exposed!
Hold on while i throw some sneakers up on the power lines to communicate with a rival gang.
Anyway, my body is falling apart, i'm going blind, and the world is not fucking full of signs and portents. This isn't a super power, and i'm not able to see things other people cannot. This hardship isn't going to make me a better person. There is no new perspective or hidden knowledge to discover. I feel like i have spent the last 2-3 years punched hard in the eye, and turns out that what it felt like all along is pretty much exactly what it is.
The only reason it all feels so dreamlike is because... can't fucking see clearly. And that's just the way it's gonna be from now on. Who needs drugs anyway, eh?
PS: I still think the world is full of joy and wonder. I'm not a total grump, i'm just tired and dying.