Michael Landau
May 30th, 2023
I’ve lost my glasses. Bifocal, prescription glasses I use all day long.
I was walking on the beach. In a rocky part, where I had to watch my step and look down, I took them off and hung them on my sweatshirt. It always works. A few minutes later they were gone.
I went back all the way, very slowly, looking all around. The tide was rising, the rocks made it impossible to see details, and oh, I didn’t have my glasses on…
Annoying, unnecessary expense. I have to get new glasses made. Is there more to it? Well, it made me realise a few things.
1. It made me feel really stupid. Did it ever happen to you that you did something really stupid, and a minute later it was simply too late? Like the time I decided to take a shortcut through the beach and got my car buried in the sand. And once you’re in it there’s no way to undo your stupidity? That kind of stupid.
It happens. I’m not always perfectly smart. But that desire to move the clock back, turn around just this one little act, and everything would be good again… I didn’t think right for just one second, and the consequences can take you a whole day to unravel. Or a week.
2. It made me realise how dependent I am on “The System”. First of all, technology. Glasses are a complex precision object, and of course, I can’t make them myself. I have no idea how they’re made. They require technology I have no access to and know nothing about. You just go to a shop and buy them and use them and don’t think about it. Until now, of course, when they’re lost.
3. And then, the medical system. I must get an ophthalmologist appointment, because here in Chile you don’t get your glasses made without a prescription. I spent about two hours looking up ophthalmologists in the area, calling offices, trying to get an appointment, getting offered one for next week or next month. Went to a couple of optometrist shops in my town to ask for help. Losing time on trying to undo that one stupid moment.
Obviously, a drag. And in the meantime I feel kind of helpless. I have optic sunglasses for driving, reading glasses for the computer, contact lenses for diving and playing padel, but none of them are what I really need for daily life.
Did I get any wiser? Any takeaway that would make my life better from now on? I doubt it.
Yes, try to avoid stupid acts that take a minute to execute and at least a week to undo. Easy to say. Always too late…
Try to be more independent of the system? I like the idea. How do you even start? Grow my own food; walk instead of drive; talk to people instead of chatting and messaging them; make my own glasses? That’s a rabbit hole I can’t go into right now. I don’t see very well right now. Kind of blurry.
Talk to you later. Got to go. I have a doctor’s appointment, I need a prescription for new glasses.
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