Seeing is complicated
September 6th
My eyesight is not so good, and not so bad. It is simply so-so. A middle-of-the-road, perfectly average for a 48-year-old office drone, who stares at the computer screen for 8 hours at work, and more hours and home. That is what my ophthalmologist told me today after a routine eyesight check-up. As he put it — a textbook median example expected for my age and lifestyle. My nearsightedness is getting better (or less advanced as in previous years) and my farsightedness is getting worse (but only a bit).
I don’t need new glasses, but he gave me a prescription anyway. And I will think about it long and hard — new glasses mean a new face, new look, and new visual presence and appearance. And it is tempting to do it — such a simple way to create and show a new me. Of course — a new superficial me. Only my looks will be different, and I will feel like a new and interesting person until everybody gets used to my glasses (or even notice them in the first place). But it is so much easier than working on my personality and character. And I am vain enough that I might actually do it.
But seriously — seeing is crazily difficult when you think about it. And we don’t think about it, since it just works from the moment we open our eyes in the morning. The light needs to bounce off the surface of an object, get through, and get bent by the cornea. Then the light gets through the pupil and lens and gets focused by the retina. Then photoreceptors change the light into electrical impulses that travel via an option nerve into the brain. And then the brain gets to work translating electrical signals into an image.
All the information above is from an internet search I did while waiting for the doctor's appointment today. I couldn't just do nothing, sitting there for 5 minutes. I had to pull out a cell phone and stare at it to pass the time. Come to think about it — my cell phone’s screen is the first and the last thing I see every day. And I think I had already forgotten how was the life I lead before cell phones and smartphones. And I am not sure where I am going with this post, so I will finish it now. Enough of staring at the screens all day, I will read me a book this evening.
On an e-book reader…
